From Business World to Software World: Deriving Class Diagrams from Business Process Models

Business world and software world coexist and interface when there is a demand to implement an information system in business environment. People in business world have more knowledge in business processes and logics of the information system while people in software world have more expertise in building software artifacts. This paper proposes a guideline to help software designers to build a software model, i.e. a UML class diagram in this case, from a business process model, i.e. a BPMN diagram which is given by a business analyst. The guideline borrows the idea of object-oriented domain analysis to identify UML classes from a business process model and enhance by knowledge about the application domain such as domainspecific patterns and other kinds of semantics. At this stage, software designers can follow this guideline to manually create class diagrams, but it is expected that the guideline can be automated in parts and will complement the concept of OMG’s MDA by supporting the building of its PIM. Key-Words: Business process model, Software Model, Business Process Modeling Notation, UML Class Diagram, Domain Analysis, Platform-Independent Model, Model Driven Architecture