What's inside the box? Prospects and limitations of semantic verification in process modeling

Abstract

Business process models support the optimization, reengineering and implementation of IT applications in administration and economics. In this area, models are important to manage complexity. In order to realize their full potential, the correctness of business process models is of significant importance. The paper applies an ontology-driven approach that aims at supporting semantic verification of process models. The approach is based on the formalization of the semantics of individual model elements by annotating them with concepts of a formal ontology. In order to ensure semantic correctness, semantic verification rules are introduced and it is demonstrated how machine reasoning provides for the automation of verification tasks. The approach is demonstrated using real-life process models taken from a capital city.