7 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
WORK
In this work we have proposed an MDA-based
method for the automatic generation of the integra-
tion process model of an organization from a CBP
model. This method allows organizations to gener-
ate integration processes which are interoperable as
well as consistent with the global logic agreed on the
CBPs. Consistence is guaranteed since the integration
process models of the organizations are derived from
CBP models by applying a top-down model-to-model
transformation process. In addition, interoperability
is achieved by applying activity patterns that guaran-
tee the synchronization between the generated public
activities of the integration process models.
The method enables to transform CBP models de-
fined with the UP-ColBPIP language. This language
uses interaction protocols to represent the behavior of
technology-independentCBPs. The use of interaction
protocols supports the main features of B2B collabo-
rations: global view of the B2B interactions, organi-
zation autonomy, decentralized management, peer-to-
peer interactions and representation of complex ne-
gotiations. Also, the use of speech acts in interac-
tion protocols provides semantics to business mes-
sages defined in CBP models. This semantics enables
the common understanding of the meaning of B2B in-
teractions of a CBP model. Furthermore, this seman-
tics enables the identification and application of the
activity patterns for generating the public and private
activities of integration process models.
The method allows generating integration process
models defined with the BPMN language. This pro-
vides process models defined at a high level of ab-
straction and in a platform-independent way. This
also enables the communication among stakeholders
and their implementation in different platforms. Thus,
organizations can understand and focus on the busi-
ness requirements to fulfill the role they perform in
CBPs.
Activitypatterns are used in the proposed transfor-
mation process to generate the public and private ac-
tivities required in the integration processes to support
cross-organizational message exchanges. The use of
activity patterns brings several benefits for designing
integration process models: automate and facilitate
the design of process models, reduce process model-
ing time and cost, improve process model quality, and
enable the reuse of the process knowledge captured
in them to generate the public and private activities.
Also, the use of activity patterns ensures the interop-
erability in the message exchange between integration
processes by providing a synchronization among the
receiving activities and the sending activities gener-
ated in the processes.
Finally, the proposed MDA-based method shows
that a direct mapping can be applied to generate a
BPMN diagram of the integration processes of an or-
ganization from a CBP model represented as interac-
tion protocol. No intervention is required by a mod-
eler. For each protocol element, a BPMN pattern is
provided to generate its behavior from the viewpoint
of the role an organization performs in the protocol.
Future work is about the identification of process
model fragments that enable the business analysts to
refine private activities in order to obtain fine-grained
models.
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