Realizing Evolution Traceability of Business Process Models

The thesis introduces a novel approach called process edification to address the problem of traceable evolution of business process models. An ontological meta-model is a basis to model evolution of business processes. A process is first conceptualized as an architecture of components and connectors in this ontology, which evolves through a series of systematic change events. Graph based analysis techniques are also introduced to reason with evolution history. An edification calculus is developed as a model of implementation of the defined ontological meta-model, resulting into a tool called Business Process Evolution Management (BPEM) to demonstrate edification of business process models.