A Metagraph View-Based Approach to Multi-firm Process Coordination

The structural details of a firm’s business processes are traditionally inaccessible to entities outside the firm. However, as firms move towards tighter coordination of processes with business partners, and system-level coupling between the processes of interacting firms, it is useful to share some features of the processes. In this paper, we show how the representation of business processes using metagraphs supports a hierarchical view that facilitates such information sharing. We show how each process owner can designate appropriate elements of process structure to be shared, while keeping other details private. We also show how business rules can be specified for shared processes. A bank loan process example is used to illustrate the approach.