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Pattern-Based Modeling and Formalizing of Business
Process Quality Constraints
Lial Khaluf, Christian Gerth, and Gregor Engels
Department of Computer Science
University of Paderborn
Paderborn, Germany
lial.khaluf@googlemail.com
,
{gerth,engels}@uni-paderborn.de
Abstract.
The quality of business processes can be checked by verifying their
compliance with specific quality constraints. These constraints represent a set of
required temporal and logical relationships between different steps of business
processes. Quality constraints are usually formulated as informal texts, which
makes them difficult to be verified, when business processes become complex.
One way to solve this problem is by automating the verification of quality con-
straints on business processes by applying model checking. To apply model check-
ing, both business processes and quality constraints have to be formalized. In this
paper, we define a new visual language for modeling quality constraints and we
provide a pattern-based translation for quality constraint models into Computa-
tion Tree Logic formulas.
Keywords:
business process, quality constraint, visual pattern, CTL-formula.
1
Introduction
One of the most important factors of the success and reputation of any business is
the quality of products and services it provides. For this reason, quality management
has become an important competitive factor that must be considered on all levels in-
cluding business processes. In this context, many standards were developed for total
quality management, aiming at fulfilling the requirements of customers and improv-
ing the quality of products, as e.g. ISO 9001 regulations and constraints [1], which
can be applied to any business. Quality constraints may be defined by producers or by
customers. No matter who defines quality constraints, there must be a way to ensure
that business processes satisfy them. However, since standard or user-defined quality
constraints are usually documented as informal texts, it becomes difficult to prove their
correctness, especially when business processes are complex. One solution for this
problem is automating the verification of quality constraints on business processes by
using the technique of model checking. To apply this technique, both business processes
and quality constraints have to be formalized. To achieve this goal, many approaches
were developed, where each one depends on a different temporal logic to formalize
quality constraints, in order to enhance and increase their expressiveness. However,
the major problem is still that no approach allows to formalize user-defined quality
