Zoom and Enhance: Action Refinement via Subprocesses in Timed Declarative Processes

Håkon Normann, Søren Debois*, Tijs Slaats, Thomas T. Hildebrandt

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper addresses the open technical problems of evolving executable, event-based process models by refinement, that is, by iteratively expanding a model until it has the required level of detail. Such iterative development is helpful because of the expectation that the next-step model is semantically compatible with the previous one, only with more detail. We provide in this paper a formal notion of refinement of single atomic actions (events) into entire subprocesses, and a theoretical framework for providing guarantees that such a next-step model is formally a refinement of the previous one. Our work is set within the declarative, event-based process modelling language of timed Dynamic Condition Response (DCR) graphs, which can express timed constraints (conditions with delay and obligations with deadlines) between events, liveness, safety, and concurrency. Concretely, we extend DCR graph syntax and semantics with a notion of subprocess, provide examples of its use, and give sound approximations of situations where replacing an event with a subprocess formally is a refinement of the original process.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBusiness Process Management - 19th International Conference, BPM 2021, Proceedings
EditorsArtem Polyvyanyy, Moe Thandar Wynn, Amy Van Looy, Manfred Reichert
PublisherSpringer
Publication date2021
Pages161-178
ISBN (Print)9783030854683
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Event19th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2021 - Rome, Italy
Duration: 6 Sep 202110 Sep 2021

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2021
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityRome
Period06/09/202110/09/2021
SeriesLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12875 LNCS
ISSN0302-9743

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

  • Action refinement
  • DCR graphs
  • Decomposition
  • Subprocesses

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