Business Process Modeling Languages Supporting Collaborative Networks

Formalizing the definition of Business Processes (BPs) performed within each enterprise is fundamental for effective deployment of their competencies and capabilities within Collaborative Networks (CN). In our approach, every enterprise in the CN is represented by its set of BPs, so that other enterprises can see and potentially share them when developing integrated BPs. Adoption of a suitable BP modeling language (BPML) is therefore critical for this purpose, while challenging due to the variety of existing tools and standards each with different levels of expressiveness and ambiguities. So far, surveys published on BP modeling approaches have compared several features of the main BP languages and standards. However, these surveys mostly focus on specific standards and tools and not on different categories of BPMLs. Moreover, there are no surveys addressing the need to fulfil CN’s requirements. Therefore, aiming to select the most suitable BPML for the purpose of modelling and representing BPs in CNs, while overviewing the defined BPML categories, the paper introduces a new categorization of the main BPMLs. Furthermore, focusing on enterprise collaboration requirements, a specific set of criteria is introduced for comparing these categories. Finally, different categories of BPMLs are compared, when addressing their suitability to support CNs.