A Reference Architecture for Semantic Business Process Management Systems

Semantic Business Process Management (SBPM) enhances BPM with semantic technologies in order to increase the degree of automation in the BPM lifecycle and help in bridging the gap between the business and IT views on business processes. In this paper, we describe the architecture of an SBPM System (SBPMS) which supports the whole SBPM lifecycle by providing functionality for process modeling, process configuration, process execution, and process analysis. We analyze the functional requirements of the SBPMS from the business user’s and the IT expert’s point of view and derive and describe the components of the SBPMS and their key interactions to achieve the required functionalities. We show how existing BPMS components can be extended to use semantics, and describe the integration of new components, such as a Semantic Execution Environment. The presented SBPMS is based on BPMN, BPEL and WSMO technologies.