A Meta-Meta-Model for Seven Business Process Modeling Languages

Many different business process modelling languages (BPMLs) have been designed in recent years. In cross-organizational business processes and heterogeneous organizations where multiple BPMLs are deployed there is a need for a unified view to ease communication and foster understandability. This paper proposes a language independent abstraction of seven mainstream BPMLs´ concepts, in a unified meta-meta model based on an analysis of these modelling languages. Generic concepts are identified and a unified metamodel is developed. An ontological analysis of the representational capability of this metamodel is examined in relation to the Bunge-Wand-Weber ontology and applicability of the approach is demonstrated via an Example.