Reference model and object oriented approach for business process design and workflow management

This paper introduces an object oriented approach to business process modeling. The approach integrates decisions on organisational design with information systems development. Based on the understanding of business processes as a customer-supplier relationship a general process model is introduced which summarizes fundamental characteristics of business processes. These characteristics are the ground for an object oriented approach which extends the OO modeling-technique OMT with features for business process modeling. An example illustrates the principal approach, the main modeling steps and the methodical support. It is based on an outside (macro) and an inside (micro) view on business processes.