Evaluation of Workflow Management Systems - A Meta Model Approach

The automated enactment of processes through the use of workflow management systems enables the transfer of control flow from application systems to workflow management systems. By now a large number of different systems, that follow different interpretations of the workflow paradigm, are available. This leads to the problem of selecting the appropriate workflow management system for a given situation. In this paper we outline a meta model approach for the evaluation of different workflow management systems. After a general introduction on the topic of meta modeling the meta models of the workflow management systems WorkParty (Siemens Nixdorf) and FlowMark (IBM) are compared as an example.