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Chapter 14
EPCs

Jan Mendling

14.1 Introduction

This chapter discusses the relationship between YAWL and Event-Driven Process
Chains (EPCs). EPCs were introduced in the early 1990s when major software
vendors identified the need for a business-oriented representation of system func-
tionality in order to speed up the rollout of business software in companies. Back
then, the Institute of Information Systems (IWi) in Saarbr¨ucken, Germany, collabo-
rated with SAP on a project to define a suitable business process modeling language
for documenting processes of the SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning system.
There were two results from this joint effort: the definition of EPCs as a modeling
language and the documentation of the SAP system in the SAP Reference Model as
a collection of EPC process models. This SAP Reference Model had a huge impact
on industry and research, with several publications referring to it. It also motivated
the creation of further EPC reference models, for example, in computer integrated
manufacturing, logistics, and retail. EPCs are frequently used in real-world projects
due to a high user acceptance and extensive tool support. Some examples of tools
that support EPCs are ARIS Toolset by IDS Scheer AG, ADONIS by BOC GmbH,
and Visio by Microsoft Corp. There is also a tool-neutral interchange format called
EPC Markup Language (EPML).
While EPCs and YAWL share most of their simple and advanced routing ele-
ments, there are some subtle differences that are important to know before mapping
them. The aim of this chapter is to clarify commonalities and differences and to dis-
cuss how transformations can be specified. Against this background, it is organized
as follows. Section 14.2 revisits the Carrier Appointment process as an example
to introduce EPCs. Section 14.3 then uses the 20 original workflow patterns to
highlight commonalities and some important differences between both languages.
Section 14.4 presents how a mapping from EPCs to YAWL can be specified, while
Sect. 14.5 discusses the transformation in the reverse direction. An alternative to

J. Mendling (B )
Humboldt-University zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: jan.mendling@wiwi.hu-berlin.de

A.H.M. ter Hofstede et al. (eds.), Modern Business Process Automation, 369
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-03121-2 14, c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010