Enterprise architecture (EA) models are helpful for describing elements that are necessary for modelling business processes at different architectural layers of the enterprise. Business process models are used to describe detailed enterprise processes in order to analyse and improve them. Business process logic provided in the business layer of EA is very abstract comparing with business process models. Therefore EA models and business process models must be linked to address in detail both structural and behavioural aspects of the information system. However linked EA and business process models do not imply that the models provide complete and lawful descriptions of the information system. The paper uses a theoretical foundation of Bunge-Wand-Weber system's model and evaluates how industry standards BPMN and ArchiMate contribute to creation of complete and lawful business process models.
Nowadays organizations employ industry modelling standards like BPMN to
understand and improve business processes. However, BPMN models are only one
component of business modelling required for a holistic view of end-to-end business
processes. More information is needed to build information systems supporting
organizational business processes [
However besides the challenge of linking two modelling languages from different
domains - BPMN and ArchiMate – there exists another challenge, namely, analysing
completeness and lawfulness of business process models. By “completeness of
process models” the author means that models must contain all necessary elements
from information system’s point of view and by “lawfulness of process models”
compliance with laws related to the system. In this paper Bunge-Wand-Weber
(BWW) model is used as a theoretical foundation to evaluate completeness and
lawfulness of business process models. BWW model describes the necessary concepts
for building an information system [
The aim of this paper is to propose an approach towards creating complete and lawful business process models by linking BPMN models with ArchiMate models to add active and passive structure to flow aspect of BPMN and evaluate completeness and lawfulness of models using BWW model. The proposed approach requires a repository-based modelling tool that can accommodate all three modelling methods used, namely, BPMN, ArchiMate, and BWW.
The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 related work is outlined. In Section 3 elements of BWW model are presented. In Section 4 the mapping of ArchiMate and BPMN is discussed. In Section 5 the evaluation of BPMN and ArchiMate using BWW model is discussed. In Section 6 algorithms for checking the completeness and lawfulness of business process models are discussed. Brief conclusions and future work are presented in Section 7.
There exist a number of researches for linking ArchiMate and BPMN notations. The
authors of [
The BWW model has been used in a number of studies for evaluation of modelling
techniques. The authors of [
The authors of [
This research is based on the results of related works and evaluates how the necessary elements for building an information system described by BWW model are represented by BPMN models linked with ArchiMate models.
The lack of consistent theoretical foundation for building information systems urged
Wand and Weber [
The paper proposes to use BWW model as a theoretical foundation for evaluating BPMN and EA models for completeness and lawfulness. BPMN and ArchiMate models are standards with different abstraction levels, therefore gaps exist between these two standards. BPMN is used at the detailed process level, ArchiMate is used at EA level describing different layers of enterprise. BPMN and ArchiMate are complementary standards. Novelty of using BWW model as a theoretical foundation for linking BPMN and EA resides in the following: 1. Providing systems view of interlinked business processes and enterprise architecture. Interlinked ArchiMate 2.0 and BPMN 2.0 models describe elements that can be viewed and analysed as systems, e.g., application layer system, related subsystems and system environment. 2. Possibility to describe lawful states and events of systems – the evaluation of BPMN and ArchiMate using BWW shows that nor BPMN 2.0 nor ArchiMate 2.0 has the ability to describe lawful states and events of the systems at the different abstraction levels. 3. Emergent properties of systems - emergent properties describe properties possessed by a system and not by isolated elements. Emergent properties are specific properties of the system as a whole and this is added-value from BWW model. 4. Kind element of BWW model will provide the possibility to describe variations of business processes, e.g., Electronic submission process variation is Electronic submission of a journal paper or Electronic submission of a monograph. 4
In an ArchiMate model, the existence of business processes is depicted [
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) [
State 1
SubmissNioon Failed
Check Submission
Send Yes Submission to
Reviewers Receive Submission
Submission OK?
State 2 Submission Complete
There are 6 BWW model elements that are not supported by BPMN notation,
namely, State law, Conceivable State Space, Lawful State Space, History,
Conceivable Event Space, and Lawful Event Space. Since BWW model describes
aspects that are important for building information systems [
To provide a uniform representation for diagrams that describe enterprise
architectures, the ArchiMate enterprise architecture modelling language has been
developed [
Table 2 shows the mapping of BWW to ArchiMate modelling language (only core elements of ArchiMate are considered. Use of extensions would provide more details concerning the Environment in BWW model).
From BWW point of view enterprise architecture is a System consisting of Subsystems – business, application and technology layers (while these sub-systems are not the only ones that can be identified in the EA). Business layer, application layer and technology layer are separate Systems consisting of structural and behavioural elements that are considered to be BWW Things. Structural and informational concepts form System Composition and ArchiMate Relationships between these concepts form System Structure. BWW element Thing is supported by ArchiMate active and passive structural elements. BWW element Property is supported by ArchiMate element Meaning, since Meaning is related to ArchiMate Business object element and thus is as a Property of a Thing. According to BWW model Property maps the thing into some Value. According to ArchiMate Value is the relative worth, utility, or importance of a business service or product – hence it is mapped to the Property element of BWW model. Representation is the property of a Business Object, hence, it is mapped to the Property element of BWW model. BWW model elements Class and Kind are supported with ArchiMate Relationships (grouping, composite, aggregate). ArchiMate does not provide a straightforward mapping to BWW State element. However, if ArchiMate models are related to BPMN models, notion State is supported by different States of BPMN Data Objects and multiple End Events of the process. Since BWW model element Transformation is defined as a mapping from one State to another State, it is supported by all ArchiMate behavioural concepts. BWW elements Acts on and Coupling are mapped into ArchiMate structural relationships between ArchiMate concepts that are mapped into BWW Things. Altogether the ArchiMate modelling language does not support the description of 11 BWW model constructs comparing to 6 BWW elements missing in BPMN. Nevertheless, ArchiMate allows defining structural components of an information system at all three levels of the enterprise architecture in much greater detail than BPMN.
Business process modelling requires a meta-structure (background knowledge) that
maintains the relationships between all the different models linked to business process
models. When creating business process models linked with the set of enterprise
models, it is necessary to achieve that all aspects of business process are stored and
can be accessed and reused afterwards. Assuming that BWW model can be used as a
meta-structure for analysing the completeness and lawfulness of the business process
models it is necessary to identify which elements from BWW model are supported by
BPMN and ArchiMate models. BWW model defines elements of the information
system that are supported by BPMN and ArchiMate standards as well as a set of
elements that are not supported by these standards. It indicates that complementary to
BPMN and ArchiMate models it is necessary to address these missing elements in
order to build the information system that conforms with a functioning system
described by BWW model [
The proposed approach requires a repository-based modelling tool that: 1. Accommodate all three modelling methods used, namely, BPMN, ArchiMate, and BWW. Meaning that the modelling tool supports the meta-models and visual representations of BPMN, ArchiMate, and BWW. 2. Possibility to add to the BPMN, ArchiMate meta-model the missing elements from
BWW model. 3. Allows defining algorithms, mechanisms, and queries to execute the completeness and lawfulness analysis on the business process models. E.g., analysing if all BWW elements are present in the business process models, analysing lawful event space – lawfulness analysis showing what are the lawful events in the business process models, analysing the lawful state space - lawfulness analysis showing what are the lawful states in the business process models, analysing whether unconceivable states and events are present in the model – lawfulness analysis showing if models are realistic.
Let’s review an illustrative example. Figure 2 depicts a fragment of business
process of Electronic paper submission process and ArchiMate 2.0 model that shows
Business level and Application level, however does not show detailed process. The
business process in the ArchiMate model called Electronic submission process is
extended with BPMN business process model containing 2 lanes. Further the
ArchiMate business process Receive Submission is linked with BPMN lane Editor
that contains activities that Editor is responsible for. The ArchiMate business process
Review Process is linked with the BPMN lane Reviewer that contains the activities
the Reviewer is responsible for. The ArchiMate business role Editor is linked with the
BPMN lane Editor and the business role Reviewer is linked with the lane Reviewer.
Nevertheless ArchiMate model supplements BPMN model with layers and active and
passive structure, still these models does not include descriptions of (the added value
of BWW):
1. State Law - a set of all properties that are lawful to a Submission.
2. Conceivable State Space and Lawful State Space - to indicate what states of a data
objects (e.g., Submission) and systems (e.g., Application components system) are
lawful and what are conceivable. For example, Submission can have Incomplete or
Not conforming with the Template or Accepted states, from which only Accepted is
a lawful state.
3. History of states - for business process monitoring purposes it is necessary to
maintain a log of previous states of a Submission, such as Submitted, Reviewed,
Accepted, etc.
4. Conceivable Event Space and Lawful Event Space - it is necessary to indicate what
events described in BPMN model are lawful, e.g., New Submission is a lawful
event in the system, but events like System’s error are unlawful.
5. Emergent properties of a system - one of the emergent property of Electronic
submission system is faster and more efficient management of submissions.
6. Business process variations - using Kind element it is possible to describe different
variations of the business process, e.g., Electronic submission of a monograph.
Fig. 2. Relationships between BPMN and ArchiMate.
In this paper a step towards evaluating completeness and lawfulness of business
process models using BWW system’s model is discussed. It was concluded that to
implement the approach for completeness and lawfulness analysis the
repositorybased modelling tool is required. The modelling tool must allow accommodating
BPMN, ArchiMate and BWW meta-models and defining algorithms, mechanisms and
queries for lawfulness and completeness checking. Another essential feature is
supplementing the BPMN and ArchiMate meta-models with elements from BWW
model that are missing, namely, State Law (SL), Conceivable State Space (CSS),
Lawful State Space (LSS), History (H), Conceivable Event Space (CES), and Lawful
Event Space (LES), because the lack of these elements hinder lawfulness and
completeness of business process models. Analysing business process models using
the BWW system’s model will allow analysing what necessary elements for
information system developing are missing in the models. The further work will
include implementing the prototype of the described repository-based modelling tool
and described algorithms and queries using the ADOxx platform [