Capturing variability in business process models: the Provop approach

Usually, for a particular business process different variants exist. Each of them constitutes an adjustment of a reference process model to specific requirements building the process context. Contemporary process management tools do not adequately support the modeling of such process variants. Either the variants have to be specified as separate process models or they are expressed in terms of conditional branches within the same process model. Both methods often lead to redundancies making model adaptations a time consuming and error-prone task. In this paper we discuss selected concepts of the Provop approach for modeling and managing process variants. A particular process variant can be configured at evel of abstraction by applying a set of well-defined change operations to a reference process model. In particular, this paper discusses advanced concepts for the design and modeling of such a reference process model as well as for the adjustments required to configure the differe...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: SMR
• Authors: Alena Hallerbach, Thomas Bauer, Manfred Reichert
• Keywords: Process Model, Process Variant, Reference Process Model, SMR 2010