Process Line Diagrams (PLDs): An Approach for Modular Process Modeling

Process Architecture is a relatively young paradigm in Software Architecture. Business Processes are logical models of architectures which are implemented via technologies such as workflow engines. With the development of BPMN and allied techniques, process architectures have gained a rich platform for development of process architecture descriptions. However, in this direction, we see a need for a modular and compact representation technique that has the ability to unambiguously capture the rich variations occurring in the dynamics of processes. The paper presents Process Line Diagrams (PLDs), a novel visual modeling language for modeling the dynamics of Business Process Architectures. Our modular and compact approach bridges the gap between low-level state machines which lose high level information about process entities and relations, and high level visual dynamic models which are too descriptive, and notation heavy. The approach is illustrated with examples of transformed and refined models bringing out the gains including modular structuring and compactness, on being compared to the traditional process modeling approach.