Abstract: Prominent problems tend to occur in the management of numerous business process models,such as the excess of nodes,complicated and fallible behaviors,as well as incomprehensibility to customers.Therefore,realizing automated simplification of the models on the premise of retaining their original semantics is of great significance to the management of business process models.However,the existing simplification methods either leads to the loss of or the generalization of parts of the behaviors,using which it would not be feasible to achieve simplification on top of behavior retention,thereby posing great challenges for domains that demand high quality models.For this reason,a simplification algorithm was proposed for business process models based on complete finite prefix,by means of which the algorithm converted parts of the structure into a behavior equivalent process tree,on the premise that the semantic equivalence of the original process model behaviors could still be ensured.Under ideal conditions,this conversion could be achieved for the entire structure.Subsequently,the business process models were reconstructed according to the behaviors and semantics in the process tree,ultimately realizing the simplification.Through the results of relevant experiments,not only had the integrity and feasibility of the algorithm been verified,the algorithm had also been proven able to effectively reduce the complexity of business process models.

Key words: process model, complex structures, Petri nets, process tree, structure abstraction, complete finite prefix

摘要： 针海量业务过程模型管理中,往往伴随着节点过多、行为复杂易错、用户难于理解等问题,因此如何在保持原有语义的前提下对模型进行自动化的化简对业务过程模型管理具有重要作用。然而,目前的化简方法要么会损失部分行为,要么会泛化部分行为,无法在保持行为的条件下进行模型化简,这为模型质量要求较高的领域带来了一定的挑战。为解决该问题,提出一种基于完全前缀展开的业务过程模型化简算法。该算法利用完全前缀展开技术,在保证原有过程模型行为语义等价的前提下,将模型的一部分结构转化为行为等价过程树,在最理想的情况下,可以将整个模型转化为行为等价过程树。再根据过程树中的行为和语义,重构业务过程模型,从而到达化简过程模型的目的。最后通过实验表明,该算法不仅具有正确性和可行性,还可以有效降低业务过程模型的复杂度。

关键词: 过程模型, 复杂结构, Petri网, 过程树, 结构化简, 完全有限前缀展开