Yet Another Event-driven Process Chain - Modelling Workflow Patterns with yEPCs

Abstract

The 20 workflow patterns proposed by van der Aalst et al. provide a comprehensive benchmark for comparing process modelling languages. In this article, we discuss workflow pattern support of Event-Driven Process Chains (EPCs). Building on this analysis, we propose three extensions to EPCs in order to provide for workflow pattern support. These are the introduction of the so-called empty connector; inclusion of multiple instantiation concepts; and a cancellation construct. As both the latter are inspired by YAWL, we refer to this new class of EPCs as Yet Another Event-driven Process Chain (yEPC). Furthermore, we sketch how a transformation to YAWL can be used to specify the semantics of yEPCs.