Knowledge Management using Business Process Modeling and Workflow Techniques

Enterprise Modeling (EM) methods are recognized for their value in providing a more organized way to describe a complex, informal domain. A problem with EM is that it does not always provide direct input for software system development. There is a "gap" between EM and software systems. One way of bridging this gap is to provide a formalization, here called that subsumes a wide variety of core modeling notations in a single using a business process language. It is possible to have different views of what is core to such a language but our attempt at such a view is articulated in the Fundamental Business Process Modeling Language (FBPML), which is a merger of IDEF3 and PSL. A workflow language, the FBPML Workflow Language (FWFL), is constructed and used to provide a declarative description of a workflow system. FWFL is tested in the "PC-configuration" domain. We also suggest using a validation and verification support framework to analyze and verify a business process model (BPM). Finally, some complexity results are presented for this type of modeling, implemented based on "FBPML" and "FWFL". This would play an important communication role in the operation of an organization. In order to verify and analyze the BPM, a three-level framework is also introduced as a means of analysing BPMs and workflow systems. Finally, the complexity of BPMs and some comparisons with other related work are discussed.