Issues in Process Modeling: IDEF, UML & EPC Models

A single process could be quite involved. In order to accomplish the overall task the actors must complete specified sub-tasks in a coordinated manner. In many fields of science, a situation or a system is not studied directly but indirectly through a model of the situation or the system. Business process modelling refers to a collection of techniques that are used to model the behaviour of business systems, which is expressed in terms of processes. Existing modelling process approaches mainly originate from the software engineering field. Several classifications for process models have already been suggested in modelling bibliography. The Activity oriented models that describe a process as a set of ordered activities, such as: IDEF0 and IDEF3, Swim lane Diagrams - UML Activity Diagrams, EPC (Event-Driven Process Chain) Model.
A Purchasing System example is used to illustrate the process modeling features of the enterprise modeling efforts that were analyzed. The above models have been compared according to some criteria (Simplicity, Decomposition, Originality, Expressiveness, Comprehensibility, Syntax, Semantics, Standardization of the models) in order to find the most suitable model for the Purchasing System Example.