Inter-Paradigm Translation of Process Models using Simulation and Mining
This addresses a need in process management for interoperability between modeling paradigms, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing simulation and mining methodologies.
The paper tackles the problem of automatically translating process models between imperative and declarative languages, which differ in expressiveness and understandability, by presenting a technique based on simulation and mining that transforms models between two exemplary languages without requiring transformation rules.
Process modeling is usually done using imperative modeling languages like BPMN or EPCs. In order to cope with the complexity of human-centric and flexible business processes several declarative process modeling languages (DPMLs) have been developed during the last years. DPMLs allow for the specification of constraints that restrict execution flows. They differ widely in terms of their level of expressiveness and tool support. Furthermore, research has shown that the understandability of declarative process models is rather low. Since there are applications for both classes of process modeling languages, there arises a need for an automatic translation of process models from one language into another. Our approach is based upon well-established methodologies in process management for process model simulation and process mining without requiring the specification of model transformation rules. In this paper, we present the technique in principle and evaluate it by transforming process models between two exemplary process modeling languages.