Merging business processes for a common workflow in an organizational collaborative scenario

In the current paper we propose an algorithm for merging business process models when the process similarity rate is high. We consider the representation of business processes in Business Process Modeling Notation format and we present a possible reduction of the elements to directed graph format components. A common graph extracted is post processed by applying a transitive reduction mechanism to obtain the simplest graph with the fewest possible edges that has the same reachability as the original graph. We present briefly other directions for merging business processes and we compare them with the proposed one. We start from the assumption that collaborations in between companies when the compatibility level from process perspective is high have better chances to succeed. Studies have shown that inter organizational collaborations fail mostly because of incompatibilities in methodology, lacks in transition process and failures in defining feasible targets. With common processes resulted from merging internally used process models, the transition setup is simple and effortless. The common process obtained could be manually or automatically updated for ensuring the compliance with shared and individual objectives and internal constraints.