Formal verification of business processes as timed automata

Abstract

Despite the representation of a business process (BP) with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) can provide support for business designers, BPMN models lack of a formal semantics to conduct qualitative analysis. In this work, we describe the use of timed automata (TA) formal language to check BPs modelled with BPMN using the model checking verification technique. Two algorithms are introduced to transform a BPMN model into TA to obtain the formal specification of a BP-task model tantamount to a BPMN model. Our approach allows business analysts and designers to perform evaluation of BPMN models with respect to business performance indicators (e.g., service time, waiting time or queue size) derived from business needs. Our approach also incorporates the UPPAAL MC tool, as it is shown in an instance of an enterprise-project.