International Business Machines Corporation

Christian Gerth

Jochen M Kuester

Thomas Gschwind

Simon D Moser

Sebastian Carbajales

Tak Seng Chau

Hagen Voelzer

Jussi H Vanhatalo

Felix Feger

Michael Illiger

Process model merging receives data representative of a first model that models a first process and a second model that models a second process, and determines, based on the data and a predetermined plurality of basic model manipulation operations, atomic differences in the second model relative to the first model. Compound differences are determined in the second model relative to the first model. A user is informed of the atomic differences and the compound differences. The user is allowed to select a set of the plurality of basic model manipulation operations. A modified first model is obtained by applying the selected set of basic model manipulation operations to the first model.

Process model merging

Changing a business process model involves several aspects: (1) given a set of change operations, dependencies and conflicts are encoded in dependency and conflict matrices; (2) given a change sequence for a process model M, the change sequence is broken up into subsequences such that operations from different subsequences are independent; (3) given a change sequence for a process model Vand another change sequence for a process model V, conflicts between operations in the different change sequences are determined; (4) the process structure tree can be used to localize dependency computations, yielding a more efficient approach to determining dependencies; and (5) the process structure tree can be used to localize conflict computations, yielding a more efficient approach to determining conflicts.

Computing dependent and conflicting changes of business process models

Methods, systems and computer program products for improvement of vertical process merging by reconstruction of equivalent models and hierarchical process merging. Embodiments of the invention include a method for identifying and resolving differences between business process models, the method including receiving a first business process model project, identifying a second business process model project, performing changes to the second business process model project, merging the first and second business process model projects, creating a delta model configured to analyze the differences between the business process model projects, wherein an analysis of the differences between the first and second business process model projects are in the form of low-level changes and auto-applying the low-level changes of the first business process model project to generate a new business process model project.

Vertical process merging by reconstruction of equivalent models and hierarchical process merging

Methods and apparatus are provided for production of a difference log in a data processing system. The difference log defines differences between process models defined in system memory. For each of the process models, model structure data provided in memory defines a hierarchy of SESE regions representing the structure of that model. Also provided in memory are model comparison data defining correspondences between elements of the models, and region comparison data defining correspondences between regions of the SESE region hierarchies for the models. The model comparison and region comparison data are analyzed to identify differences between the SESE region hierarchies, and a difference log defining said differences is produced. In preferred systems, the model structure data and the region comparison data are computed for the models, and the difference log has a hierarchical structure corresponding to the structure of the process models.

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Detmold, Germany

Christian Gerth