This document discusses various techniques for business process modeling, including flow charts, Gantt charts, PERT diagrams, data flow diagrams, control flow diagrams, functional flow block diagrams, Petri nets, IDEF, UML, BPMN, XPDL, Wf-XML, and BPEL. It provides brief descriptions of each technique and notes their purposes and applications in business process modeling and systems development.

1. ISCTE/DCTI - 2003/2007
Business Process Modeling
Carlos J. Costa

2. Index

Introduction

Purposes

Approaches
– Flow Charts,
– GANTT, PERT Diagrams
– Data Flow Diagrams, Control Flow Diagrams
– Functional Flow Block Diagrams
– Petri Nets
– IDEF
– Unified Modeling Language (UML)
– Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

3. Introduction

People have been modeling processes for
many years.

“Business Process Models” not always called
like that

4. Purposes
Can be used:

To train new employees.

As aids in re-engineering processes.

To develop simulations to test the processes on
inputs that have not occurred in real life.

To develop systems to automate the processes
they model.

By programmers to process model as a guide
in developing the information system

5. Approaches
Methods/Techniques

Flow Charts

GANTT

PERT Diagrams

Data Flow Diagrams

Control Flow Diagrams

Functional Flow Block Diagrams

Petri Nets

IDEF

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

6. Flow Charts

Flow charts originated in, or were adopted very
early by, the programming community.

Programmers used them to describe the logic,
or path of execution, within an executing
program

7. GANTT

Invented in 1917 by Henry Gantt.

He was working for the Navy and wanted a
method to schedule the tasks associated with
ship construction.

These simple charts showed both logic and
sequencing

His charts depicted each task as a horizontal
bar who’s length was determined by the
expected duration of the task.

In general, both Gantt charts are used for
project management.

8. PERT Diagrams

Program Evaluation and Review Technique

developed for the U.S. Navy Special Projects Office in
1957 to support the U.S. Navy's Polaris nuclear submarine
project.

They basically capture the same information as Gantt
charts,

Gantt charts provide a good visualization of task durations,

PERT charts do a better job presenting sequencing,
especially when the sequencing is complicated.

In general, PERT charts are used for project management.

9. Functional Flow
Block Diagrams (FFBD)

Introduced by Frank Gilbreth in 1921

Is widely used in classical systems engineering
to show the order of execution of system
functions.

It shows the proper sequencing in terms of
precedence (function A must happen before
function B) and concurrency (function C can
occur at the same time as function D).

The concurrent functions can be either parallel
(AND gate) or alternative paths (OR gate). l

10. Data Flow Diagrams (DFD)

DFDs concentrate on the data in an information
system.

They show the sequence of processing steps
traversed by the data.

proposed by Larry Constantine

11. Control Flow Diagrams (CFD)

Are similar to Data Flow Diagrams

Are commonly used where the application is
more event-driven than data-driven.

12. Petri Nets

a special kind of graph aimed at representing the
behavior of dynamic systems .

were developed by Carl Adam Petri, in the context of
his doctoral dissertation, in 1962.

been used to model the behavior of systems that are
concurrent, asynchronous, distributed, parallel,
nondeterministic, and even stochastic.

Its resides in the fact that a small number of constructs
(tokens, places, and transitions) can represent fairly
complex behaviors in a fairly concise fashion.

models using Petri nets lend themselves to formal
analysis and validation .

13. IDEF

technique of traditional business process modeling

there are several types of IDEF models.

The most familiar is IDEF0.

IDEF0 models are activity models.

They model the tasks performed by an organization, to
include the inputs, outputs, and controls of each task.

Tasks, or activities, can be shown as high level tasks
which decompose into sub-tasks.

Inputs, outputs, and controls can also be aggregated
into groups.

http://www.idef.com/

14. Business Process Modeling
Notation (BPMN)

developed by BPMI

unify the different graphical notations for business processes.

similarly to Activity Diagrams,

is not pure formal language

the specification also provides a mapping to BPEL.

it contains concepts like complex decisions, post-conditions,
preconditions (that cannot be subject to machine interpretation)
and immediate events.

Its metamodel reflects most of BPEL’s concepts except
message correlation.

Additional specifications will define a BPMN metamodel based
on MOF. This will permit serialization with XMI production rules
for XML interchange.

15. XML Process Definition Language
(XPDL)

format standardized language

interchange business process definitions between different
workflow products, i.e. between different modeling tools and
management suites.

XPDL defines an XML schema for specifying the declarative
part of workflow / business process

In contrast with BPEL, is not a compiled executable
programming language,

a process design format for storing the visual diagram and
process syntax of business process models, as well as
extended product attributes.

Created by Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC)

16. Wf-XML

a BPM standard

developed by the Workflow Management Coalition.

designed and implemented as an extension to the OASIS
Asynchronous Service Access Protocol.

offers a standard way for a BPM engine to invoke a process in
another BPM engine, and to wait for it to complete.

http://www.wfmc.org/

17. Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL),

short for Web Services Business Process Execution
Language (WS-BPEL)

executable language for specifying actions within
business processes with web services.

Processes in Business Process Execution Language
export and import information by using web service
interfaces exclusively.

http://bpel.xml.org/

is an OASIS standard

http://www.oasis-open.org/

18. Unified Modeling Language
(UML)

Several of the leaders in the field got together, formed the
Object Modeling Group (OMG) and fused their competing
methodologies into a unified one.

Consist of a number of different of models, each model for a
different purpose.

Class model are used to capture relationships among the
entities in the domain.

Use Case diagrams are used to capture requirements.

Sequence diagrams capture process flow.

Package diagrams capture details of deployment.

UML Sequence diagrams and UML Activity diagrams may be
used for capturing process descriptions.

http://www.uml.org/

19. UML
Use Case Diagram
Interaction Diagram
Activity Diagram