INCENTIVES FOR BUSINESS AND SOFTWARE MODELING COOPERATION:
USING UML ACTIVITY DIAGRAM
Kaan Kurtel
Izmir University of Economics
Sakarya Cad. No.156, Balcova, 35330, Izmir, Turkey
E-mail: kaan.kurtel@ieu.edu.tr
KEYWORDS
UML activity diagram, object-oriented modeling,
software modeling, business modeling.
ABSTRACT
Due to the increasing importance of software and the
growth of web-based business implementations, a
growing number of companies need to fully integrate
business and software processes. However, preparing
compatibility or link between these two fields is not easy.
The reason for this difficulty is that business analysts and
software developers are using different modeling
methodologies and notations to meet the differing needs
of the respective tasks. The solution is to match the two
modeling methodologies to each other logically and
semantically so that the resulting structure and
interpretation will be able to satisfy the demands of
analysts and developers. In this research, we focus on
investigating the adequacy of the Unified Modeling
Languages (UML) activity diagrams for business process
modeling. We also illustrate a brief outline of the order
process model implemented using UML activity
diagrams under the object-oriented analysis and design
methodology.
INTRODUCTION
In the 1990s, organizations started to move from
function- to process-oriented operational structures. The
goal of this transformation has been to increase customer
and market orientation, as well as the flexibility of
enterprises. In the 2000s more and more organizations
have extended their focus from intra-enterprise processes
to inter-enterprise business processes (Kirchmer, 2007).
Also, companies have been under increasing pressure
to develop more modularized, scalable, reliable, and
higher-level abstract representations of their domain. In
this period, business, and particularly logistics
management, depend on the uses methods of a process-
based approach more than ever and business executives
often need more efficient, business modeling
methodologies.
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Business Process Modeling (BPM) is emerging as a
major methodology for system development, although it
already plays a key role in understanding the way an
organization works. The BPM area traditionally has its
own preferences for modeling languages, tools,
terminology, process diagram notation, and other specific
details. In particular, their modeling performance and the
precision of semantic definitions has greatly benefited
business system analysts. BPM methodology identifies
the relevant business process and describes them within
the framework of a modeling language. Thus, software
developers have become accustomed to using this
methodology for analyzing a system and programming.
In spite of this, BPM methodologies for software design
do not provide the optimum or best conditions since they
are neither equipped to support software nor meet
contemporary software engineering requirements.
According to Rittgen (2003), “modeling business
processes and modeling software is done using different
notations that are designed to fit the special needs of the
respective tasks. However, this fact results in painful
methodological gap between business and software
models, which to hard to bridge”.
At this point, UML provides comprehensive business
process models to software developers and has become
an industrial standard for the presentation of various
design artifacts in object modeling. In addition, the UML
provides some modeling advantages to the business
domain by designing superior models.
An online order process case study is used to identify
business and software modeling problems. The case
study could be considered too simple to catch real
problems faced during the modeling.
The goals of this research study are:
• to present a new modeling profile to the
logisticians,
• to investigate how adequate the UML activity
diagrams is for business process modeling,
• to present an online order process model using
UML modeling concepts.
 The paper contains six sections. The first is the
introduction, and the second section explains the
business process-modeling world. The third section
defines the problem. The fourth section explains UML
and UML activity diagrams. The fifth section briefly
presents an online order process and modeling variations
and also to explain using of UML activity diagrams for
online order process modeling, and the final section
contains the conclusion and looks at possible future
work.
THE BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING WORLD
Processed based business topics emerged during the
1980s and early 1990s. The modern definition put forth
by the well-known business process gurus, Hammer
(1990), Davenport and Short (1990), Drucker and Peters
(1993). They have defined principles for process
management, including: measurement of performance,
continuous improvement, competitiveness, and the
ability to satisfy customer needs. They also advocated
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as a fundamental
examination and redesign of business processes a part of
scientific management tool for achieving success in
dynamic world.
According to Lusk et al. (2005), the evolution of
business process as a customer and process centric
approach to improving business results has entered its
third wave over the last thirty-five years in the form of
Business Process Management. In the first wave in
1970’s and 80’s international Japanese companies under
the “Just in time” manufacturing philosophy defined the
business process standards. In this wave, Total Quality
Management, Manufacturing Resource Planning, task
efficiency, and in-house integration were the common
standards. Because of the growing use of computers in
the late 80’s and early 90’s, business processes migrated
from a human driven, paper-based workflow to
groupware technology. These processes, which totally
coordinated, guided, automated and monitored a business
system, greatly helped the company information system.
In the second wave, the most important concepts
employed by businesses to increase customer satisfaction
were Six Sigma, ERP, and business process
reengineering.
The next major milestone in business process
management has been marked by the arrival of Internet
access. Flexibility, transparency, adaptability between
processes and the integration between the different
members of the supply chain have emerged as important
issues in the establishment of a context where 7x24
global business, service oriented architecture, and
enterprise application integration have had a greater
impact on business competitiveness, especially in e-
commerce arena.
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BPM (sometimes known as Business Process
Management) is a set of technologies and standards for
design, execution, administration, and monitoring of
business process. A business process is the flow or
progression of activities toward a business goal. Each of
the activities represents the work of a person, an internal
system, or the process of a partner company (Havey,
2005).
When analyzing a business system using BPM, it is
important to understand the details of the processes used
and the resources involved. Also business process
models can aid in re-engineering processes, and be used
to develop simulations to test the processes on inputs that
have not occurred in real life. Finally, they can be used to
develop systems to automate the processes they model.
BPM uses variety of different process notations for
modeling to the business domain. Over a long period of
time those involved in the analysis and redesign of
business processes have used a variety of different
notations, Some of the better-known are flow charts, data
flow diagrams, functional flow block diagrams, Gantt
and PERT diagrams, and Integrated Definition (IDEF)
methodology.
BPM today is under the influence of a number of
organizations’ intelligible standards, such as Object
Management Group (OMG), Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards
(OASIS), The Workflow Management Coalition
(WfMC), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),
IBM, and Microsoft, who all provide technology based
solutions in the BPM arena. Also the organizations as
that listed above, they lead enterprise integration
technology complementing services for instance Service-
Oriented Architecture (SOA), Enterprise Application
Integration (EAI), and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).
In addition the above, one of the most noteworthy
notation is the Business Process Modeling Notation
(BPMN). BPMN is a standardized graphical notation for
providing businesses with the capability to understand
their business procedures and gives organizations the
ability to communicate these procedures in a standard
manner. It was developed by Business Process
Management Initiative (BPMI), and has been maintained
by the Object Management Group since 2005. The core
set of BPMN elements enable the easy development of
simple diagrams that will look familiar to most business
analysts such as flow and connection objects, including
activity, event, sequence flow, message flow,
associations, mechanisms, and artifacts Thus, BPMN
creates a standardized bridge for the gap between the
business process design and process implementation.
THE PROBLEM • Interaction Diagrams, all derived from the more
general Behavior Diagram, include the Sequence
These role, event, and entity-based notations Diagram, Communication Diagram, Timing
mentioned in previous section are well known in Diagram, and Interaction Overview Diagram.
effective high level modeling methodology and have
been provided by software developers for substantial A basic core set of diagrams (using case models,
length of time. However, these notations lack sufficient interaction diagrams, class diagrams, and activity
details in coding level and, most importantly, do not meet diagrams) is used in the development process to refine
the contemporary software requirements demanded by the design and ultimately define the business objects.
the object-orientated paradigm. Figure 2 presents simple design process steps of the
UML that depends on the constraints of programming
The major necessity is to maintain an interface language, and the organizational information system.
between the business and software domains. To achieve
User
this, supplementary notations, which are supported by
object-orientated paradigms, are needed, as well as a
formalization of an integration platform for linking the Use Cases
modeling the activities. Figure 1 presents relationships Coding:
Class Activity Deployment VB
between business and software domain in the modeling Diagrams Diagrams Diagrams C++
field (Maruna, 2007). Java....
Sequence
Diagrams

Figure 2.The UML design process (Lan, 2005).

Business Domain

BUSINESS MODELING In UML, an activity diagram provides a view of the

Requirements, Business Processes
behavior of a system by describing the sequence of
Roles, Events, Entities, Rules
actions in a process. They are similar to flowcharts
(sometimes known as “OO flowcharts”). An activity
diagram is based on state-machine oriented concepts that
Software Domain

SOFTWARE shows sequential of and parallel flows in a process as

DATA MODELING MODELING defined in UML, the primary graphical symbols of which
Requirements Finite State Machines are nodes, paths, and other elements as listed in
Data Structures OO Paradigm (OMG07, Tables 12.1, 12.2, 12.3).
Domains, Rules Architecture Patterns
Databases Design Patterns
Partition 1 Partition 2 Partition 3

Figure 1. Interaction between the domains.

Partition. Show
Start
different parties
Action. It does something.
involved in the
prosecc.
ActionState1
Fork. One incoming
UML AND UML ACTIVITY DIAGRAMS transition, and multiple
outgoing parallel transitions
and/or object flows.
Object Node. An
UML is a visual language for specifying, constructing object poduced or
used by actions.
and documenting the artifacts of systems (OMG03) that ActionState2 ActionState3
are controlled by the OMG Group, an open consortium
of companies. A key point is that the common standard ActionState5 Object

diagramming notation of the UML for drawing or

presenting pictures (with some text) is related to Object ActionState4
software-primarily object oriented software. In UML
these documents are called artifacts and they describe the
ActionState6
output of a step in the process.

UML defines thirteen types of diagrams, divided into Join. Multiple

incomingtransitions and/or
three categories: (OMG05) ActionState7
object flows; one outgoing
transition.

• Structure Diagrams include the Class Diagram, End

Object Diagram, Component Diagram, Composite
Structure Diagram, Package Diagram, and
Deployment Diagram.
Figure 3. Basic UML activity diagram notation.
• Behavior Diagrams include the Use Case Diagram,
Activity Diagram, and State Machine Diagram.

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39
 Order Order Order Credit
Placement Translation Validation Check
UML Activity Diagram notation is a part of UML
diagramming notation and can be typically used for
either modeling of computational or organizational Order Order Inventory
Fulfillment Approval Check
aspects for software developers under the object-oriented
principles and patterns. However they are also often used
for business process engineering or workflow modeling Figure 4. A simple order entry and fulfillment process.
(Lavagno, 2003). A basic UML activity diagram notation
is shown in Figure 3 (Larman, 2005). Online order processing is a very state-dependent
process. A regular expression of online order processing
is presented as a deterministic computer program or
CASE STUDY: ONLINE ORDER PROCESS service that is known as finite state machine (FSM) in
Figure 5.
In this research study, we attempt to model the online
Cancel Order
order process. The main criteria for selecting online order
processing are, firstly, the consideration that it is the first Create End
Order Order
point of contact with customers, and the fact that order Order
Order
Pay Invoice Ship
Line
process is one of the processes better known to
logisticians. Another significant aspect of order process
is that it is an intersection point between business and
software domains. Finally the characteristics of order Figure 5. FSM expression for online order processing.
process are suitable for the use of activity diagrams in
that they enable to model behavioral logic and the FSM diagrams are very effective technique to describe
parallel activities of a system. the behavior of a system. Although, they can show only
artifacts of what the object directly observes. So
According to Frazelle (2002), capturing an order although, the state machine diagrams are not very
means capturing customer demand and entering it into appropriate when we want to describe the behavior of a
our own system for processing. Also order processing is number of objects collaborating. For this reason is
obviously an early step in the logistics channel. The order combination of state diagrams with other techniques or
entry activity is the interface point with the customer, for the development of a system using a mix of UML
this reason it is a more memorable activity on the part of artifacts are useful (Fowler, 2004).
the customer.
Parallel to state machine expression, another
Order processing has become more complex and simplified presentation under the networking approaches
difficult to manage in B2B exchange, because it needs a called data-flow diagrams (DFD) is shown in Figure 6.
high degree of collaboration and process integration. For
this reason order processing is strictly related to the
Customer
capture of an order and its flow through all members of Customer
Order and Order
0 Information
the chain. Web based-ordering has a great advantage Customer Process D1
Customer
Database
over other capturing systems such as manual, phone and Acknowledgement
Order

EDI based. The most important leads in web-based Dispach

ordering are as follows: Note

Cyber
Warehouse Credit Credit
1. Quick response to customer, Supplier Check Card
Company
2. Real-time inventory visibility,
3. Opportunity of online scheduling. Figure 6. DFD (Level-0) presentation for online order
processing.
The logistics example of order fulfillment process is
made up multiple steps, and each step is implemented as It is clear that the online order processes in Figure 6
a service or sub-process. These steps are completed for illustrate the conceptual steps of the processes as
every order to fulfill the process in Figure 4 (Sonic, incrementally as possible. According to Larman (2005),
2007): DFDs are usually used to show major data flows or to
explore a new high-level design in terms of data flow.

Thus, the traditional systems analysis tools such as

FSM and DFD are effective at showing the general
sequence of a process; however they have the drawback

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40
of showing insufficient detail of a several processes and help to explain the relationship between the system and
several objects and not representing the full system other systems, which are not part of the existing system
behavior under the object-oriented analysis and design in Figure 7.
methodologies.
Finally, the error handling mechanism (named
Figure 7, presents a cognitive model to explain and to exception handling) provides a control point in the
illustrate of UML Activity Diagrams through online model. This mechanism detects errors, creating an object,
order process. and the flow is directed to an exception handler. The
exception objects contain information about the error that
The important advantage of activity diagrams is that may either terminate the application or attempt to make
the analyst can model an activity that has partitions and recovery.
each activity partitions represent a grouping of related
actions. Partitioning (sometimes named “swim lanes”) is The information in the exception object is often saved
a powerful technique; it can make activity diagrams to an error log (Arlow, 2005). In Figure 8, we have
much easier to understand (Arlow, 2005) and can be used updated our Find Account activity to the Authenticate
to describe parallel behavior. Figure 7 shows Fulfillment Account activity output and create an ErrorLog object if
and Customer Service activities that have a grouped set the customer cannot be authenticated.
of activity partitions.
protected exeption
Web node handler
Customer Catalog Account Fulfillment Customer External AccountNumber[valid]
Service Activity
Find Authenticate
Financial ErrorLog
Account Account
Institution
Customer

Find Item

Find
Figure 8. Activity diagram for online order process.
Receive
Account Order

The activity diagram is easily understandable to both

business analysts and software developers. These special
Fill Order Receive
Payment
representations obviously have a conceptual integrity
with the other UML notations and also enable
development of a system modeling under the full scope
wait
48 Deliver Send of object-oriented methodology.
hours Order Invoice

For this reason, the activity diagram is a mutual point

Cancel Close between business and software models, which reduce the
Order Order
existing methodological gap.

CONCLUSIONS
Figure 7. Activity diagram for online order process.
The special features of UML activity diagrams
The second is that the objects can be represented in a
demonstrate the positive affects on the modeling results
particular state. The input and output edges of object
and increased analyst productivity. Thus, business
notes and object flows represent the movement of objects
analysts should represent the business process using
around the activity. Figure 7 shows the Customer object
UML analysis and design modeling tools from top to
and its flow, represented by rectangle symbols.
bottom using the same methodology.
The third is an accept time event action can be
The business system analysts have clearly understood
identified by an activity diagram. This feature enables
and modeled existing systems with traditional systems
representation of time-based actions. Figure 7 shows a
analysis tools, however, UML notation and object-
time event action (represented hourglass symbol) that is
oriented analysis and design methodology is not a well-
generated customer cancel order in 48 hours; condition
known area by business analysts, although, at same time
executes the Cancel Order activity.
software developers are using of different modeling
methodologies and notations. This situation should
The fourth benefit is that a partition can represent an
trigger modeling difficulties and unwanted results.
external interaction, with a Financial Institution; this will

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41
 In this paper we have defined a problem and explained
the possible solution approaches and opportunities. Using
the UML design process and the diagrams, especially the
activity diagrams for process modeling in business, can
effectively solve this problem and may gain better
modeling capabilities edge from this after all. And, from
this perspective the major attributes that exceptional
occasions of UML activity diagrams require are as
follows:
• To provide a positive, worldwide effect for business
processing.
• To give greater power and flexibility to business
modeler.
• To illustrate events and circumstances more
dynamically than the traditional systems analysis
tools.
Additionally, these diagrams would become the basis
of object-oriented methodology, providing a unique
advantage to close the gap between business and
software models.
However, the authors expect that soon it will be
normal practice not only in training on logistics
information systems, but also in other subjects.
The concept of exception handling facilities of the
activity diagrams will possibly for future work.
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BIOGRAPHY
Kaan Kurtel has been an instructor and vice director of
Vocational School in Izmir University of Economics
since 2002. He lectures in e-business, logistics
information systems, systems analysis, algorithms and
data structures. Currently a Ph.D. student in the
Department of Computer Engineering at Trakya
University, he obtained his M.Sc. degree from the
Department of Computer Engineering at Ege University
in 2005. He has spent more than 20 years in various
fields of the computer industry. He holds a B.Sc. degree
from the Department of Geophysics Engineering at
Dokuz Eylul University, graduating in 1982.
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