Semantic Business Process Pattern to Web Service Mapping: an Experimental Framework

An organisation’s competitiveness relies heavily on its business processes, and business processes nowadays are automated through Web Services to allow organisations to be more flexible in the face of change. However, bridging the gap between business process patterns and Web Services is an important yet challenging task and therefore this paper aims to describe an approach that facilitates the mapping of useful Web Services to business requirements via the adoption of business process patterns. This paper adopts a design research method for formulating and applying a new mapping framework for identifying the matching rules. To that end, two different repositories are mapped to one another: an ontology-based business process patterns repository and a Web Service software component repository. An important feature of this ontological matching is providing richer semantics, which enables fuller, more flexible automation of service provision and use, and support the construction of a more powerful mapping framework. Our mapping exercise has brought to light some vital differences between the definition of business process elements and Web Service constructs. Finally, the research demonstrates the need to focus future research efforts on understanding the importance of business process patterns as cornerstones of business process change, as well as identify directions for future research and practice.