Abstract
This paper presents a notation to model business processes in the context of B2B (Business to Business) systems. Data-awareness is a key asset of the notation: data is placed at the forefront of process representations and task execution is data-driven instead of control-driven. In addition to process models, the notation (B2BPN) includes three other types of models, i.e. the architectural model, the collaboration models and the information model of the process. Data can transit between B2B processes through the interactions defined in the collaboration models and such models represent the relationships between the companies taking part in B2B systems. The notation is illustrated with an example concerning the order management of a distributor.
1. Introduction
The notion of data-awareness in business process models can take on various meanings. The simplest is the graphical representation of the data handled by processes: the BPMN (Business Process Model & Notation) standard [1] offers data objects to represent the input and output data of tasks but without precisely defining a data-driven behavior of the tasks. Moreover, data objects are representations of the variables of process instances. The notion of process instance is suitable for handling a single data and any other complementary data: the underlying assumption is that there is no interference between instances.
4. Conclusion
This paper has presented a notation to model business processes in the context of B2B systems. In addition to process models, the notation (B2BPN) includes three other types of models, i.e. the architectural model, the collaboration models and the information model of the process. The major features of the process model are as follows. The dataflow and the tasks are the main elements, the process is singleton (there is only one instance) and this gives great flexibility to compose and decompose data flows by means of join, fork, join/fork, and reduction tasks. In addition, the notation supports choices of tasks and of input entities. The choice of a task takes place when there is a group of tasks having inputs in common: the choice may be automatic or may be the outcome of the decision of the participant in charge of the choice. The choice of the input entities takes place with join tasks (which have two or more inputs) when a match of the entities taken from the inputs is required.
