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Verifying workflow processes: a transformation-based approach

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Abstract

Workflow modeling is a challenging activity and designers are likely to introduce errors, especially in complex industrial processes. Effective process verification is essential at design time because the cost of fixing errors during runtime is substantially higher. However, most user-oriented workflow modeling languages lack formal semantics that hinders such verification. In this paper, we propose a generic approach based on the model transformation to verify workflow processes. The model transformation includes two steps: first, it formalizes the desirable semantics of each modeling element; secondly, it translates a workflow process with clear semantics to an equivalent Petri net. Thus, we can verify the original workflow process using existing Petri net theory and analysis tools. As a comprehensive case study, verifying workflow processes in an industrial modeling language (TiPLM) is presented. Experimental evaluations on verifying real-world business processes validate our approach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Haiping Zha & Jiaguang Sun

  2. Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Wil M. P. van der Aalst

  3. School of Software, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Haiping Zha, Jianmin Wang, Lijie Wen & Jiaguang Sun

  4. Institute of Specifications and Standards, Shanghai, 200235, China

    Haiping Zha

Authors
  1. Haiping Zha
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  2. Wil M. P. van der Aalst
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  3. Jianmin Wang
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  4. Lijie Wen
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  5. Jiaguang Sun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haiping Zha.

Additional information

Communicated by Prof. Robert France.

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Zha, H., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Wang, J. et al. Verifying workflow processes: a transformation-based approach. Softw Syst Model 10, 253–264 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0149-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-010-0149-9

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