Business process interoperability: extended abstract

Amit K. Chopra

Abstract: A primary challenge for Computer Science is devising suitable abstractions for a given application domain so that solutions may be assembled and analyzed at the level of the domain, that is, by using primitives of the domain. For example, in personal finance, deposit and withdraw are primitives, not add and subtract. Our interest lies in the domain of business processes. In the most general sense, a business process may be thought of as multiple organizations interacting with each other to obtain their respective business goals. Supporting autonomy and compliance checking are key for business processes: each organization in a process is free to act as it pleases within the constraints of the contracts it enters into with others; violation of a contract typically means additional penalties.