On the Suitability of the Pi-Calculus for Business Process Management

Abstract

This chapter discusses the suitability of a process algebra for the description of mobile systems, the π-calculus [2], as a formal foundation for Business Process Management (BPM). BPM refers to an integrated set of activities for designing, enacting, managing, analyzing, optimizing, and adapting business processes. Since BPM lacks a uniform formal foundation for the technical aspects [3], we investigate requirements that a theory should fulfill and argue why the π-calculus is well suited for them. Our argumentation complements the work on the π-calculus as a foundation for BPM from an economical viewpoint as investigated by Smith and Fingar [4, 5] by focusing on technical aspects. We therefore analyze three major shifts in the area of BPM, ranging from system description and distribution aspects up to changing environments in which business processes are executed. We argue that the arising requirements for BPM can only be fulfilled by mobile system theory, such as the π-calculus. Mobile systems are a complete new approach to BPM, that have not yet been investigated as a formal foundation for BPM. We discuss concepts like Workflow Patterns [6], service orchestration and choreography as well as correlations [7] using recent work in the area of mobile systems and BPM [8, 9]. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. We first introduce the shifting requirements for BPM in section 5.2, followed by a discussion of how the