Stoic Conceptual Modeling Applied to Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

TL;DR

This paper introduces Stoic Conceptual Modeling (SCM) as a minimal ambiguity ontological framework and applies it to analyze and improve the conceptual foundation of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN).

Contribution

It proposes SCM based on Stoic philosophy for clearer system descriptions and demonstrates its application to BPMN to enhance ontological accuracy.

Findings

SCM offers a tighter, more precise representation of reality.

Application to BPMN clarifies core concepts like activity, task, and message.

Provides a foundation for improved software system requirements.

Abstract

Basic abstraction principles are reached through ontology, which was traditionally conceived as a depiction of the world itself. Ontology is also described using conceptual modeling (CM) that defines fundamental concepts of reality. CM is one of the central activities in computer science, especially as it is mainly used in software engineering as an intermediate artifact for system construction. To achieve such a goal, we propose Stoic CM (SCM) as a description of what a system must do functionally with minimal ambiguity. As a case study, we apply SCM to investigate the ontology of BPMN (business process modeling notation). Such an undertaking would demonstrate SCM notions and simultaneously may offer a viable ontological foundation for BPMN. SCM defines the being of things and actions in reality based on Stoic notions of existence and subsistence. It has two levels of specification: (1) a subsistence static model where things and actions subsist and (2) an existence dynamic model where things and actions exist in time. From the Stoic ontological point of view, while a thing existing has a clear denotation, subsistence indicates the thing is being there, but it is inactive (does not participate in an event). We apply SCM to BPMN processes that involve buying a new car with many notions, such as activity, task, event, and message. The result indicates that SCM produces a tighter representation of reality, thus providing the necessary description of the part in the application world to be used as requirements for developing the software system.