Research project

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is widely used for modeling the structure and the behavior of software systems. These systems are often used in a larger context, which includes other elements like employees, machines, products etc. Since this business process and the software systems influence each other, it is desirable to use the UML for modeling the business process also.
Project ERIKA had two main goals: to provide a way for a user without much knowledge about UML to model the sequence of actions taken and the resources needed for his business process and to compute from this model results like the utilization of specific resources or the average number of jobs waiting for processing by an activity.
To achieve this, the task of modeling was split in two subtasks: The business process is modeled by the process modeler using activity diagrams. These are easy to understand and to use. The behavior of resources and the relationships between resources among each other and with activities are modeled by the resource modeler using class diagrams, statechart diagrams and activity diagrams. Modeling resources is more complicated, since each resource has its own behavior independent from the business process, but has to be able to interact with it. The resource modeler creates resources which the process modeler later can use as a black box.
To make this possible first the syntax and semantics of the various UML diagrams had to be specified in context of the business process. To compute results from the model it has to be transformed into a mathematically solvable form. For this Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPN) were used. So transformation rules were specified and implemented. The so created GSPNs were analyzed using the solving tool PANDA (Petri Net Analysis and Design Assistant). The results generated from this tool are the basic values from which results in the original UML-context are computed.
Some example models have been created and thoroughly analyzed in various ways, showing the suitability of the shown modeling method and the implemented prototype.