Towards automatic incremental synchronization of multiple process models via information flow optimization

Process model is one of the foundation stones of business process management(BPM). In a lot of industrial practices of BPM, we encounter the requirements to synchronize process models. Although there have already been many research initiatives and mature solutions for two-model synchronization, multi-model synchronization is still a difficult question. Major challenges include how to define multi-model synchronization semantics and how to propagate changes across the multiple models in order to realize incremental synchronization. This paper proposes a solution in which the modification propagation is considered as information flow. After defining synchronization semantics, we work out a propagation scope for each tracked model change. Then an algorithm is designed to generate an propagation plan for all model changes, with the objective to optimize the information flow. The multiple process models get synchronized after all modifications are propagated according to the plan. A case from an industrial practice is used to demonstrate the semantics and algorithm of incremental synchronization of multiple process models.