A Framework for Business Process Model Repositories

Large organizations often run hundreds or even thousands of business processes. Managing such large collections of business processes is a challenging task. Intelligent software can assist in that task by providing common repository functions such as storage, search and version management. They can also provide advanced functions that are specific for managing collections of process models, such as managing the consistency of public and private processes and extracting knowledge from existing processes to better design new processes. This paper, by analyzing existing business process model repositories, proposes a framework for repositories that assist in managing large collections of business process models. The framework consists of a management model and a reference architecture. The management model lists the functionality that can be provided by business process model repositories. The reference architecture presents the components that provide this functionality and their interconnections. The framework provides a reference model for analysis and extension of existing repositories and design of new repositories.