Transformation of BPMN Diagrams to YAWL Nets

Abstract

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is the de facto standard for modeling business processes on a conceptual level. However, BPMN lacks a formal semantics and many of its features need to be further interpret, Consequently that hinders  BPMN as a standard to statically check the semantic correctness of models. YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) allows the specification of executable workflow models. A transformation between these two languages enables the integration of different levels of abstraction in process modeling. This paper discusses how to transform BPMN diagrams to YAWL nets. The benefits of the transformation are threefold. Firstly, it clarifies the semantics of BPMN via a mapping to YAWL. Secondly, the deployment of BPMN business process models is simplified. Thirdly, BPMN models can be analyzed with YAWL verification tools.