Inventing Less, Reusing More and Adding Intelligence to Business Process Modeling

Abstract. Recently, a variety of workflow patterns has been proposed focusing on specific aspects like control flow, data flow, and resource assignments. Though these patterns are relevant for implementing Business Process Model-ing (BPM) tools and for evaluating the expressiveness of BPM languages, they do not contribute to reduce redundant specifications of recurrent business func-tions when modeling business processes. Furthermore, contemporary BPM tools do not support process designers in defining, querying, and reusing activ-ity patterns as building blocks for process modeling. Related to these problems this paper proposes a set of activity patterns, evidences their practical relevance, and introduces a BPM tool for the modeling of business processes based on the reuse of these activity patterns. Altogether our approach fosters reuse of busi-ness function specifications and helps to improve the quality and comparability of business process models