On the semantics of EPCs: A vicious circle

Abstract

Abstract: Recently, Nüttgens and Rump proposed a formal semantics for Event driven Process Chains (EPCs), which should be fully compliant with the informal semantics of EPCs. But, their semantics has a severe flaw. This flaw reveals that there is a fundamental problem with the informal semantics of EPCs. Here, we pin-point the cause of this problem, we show that there is no sound formal semantics for EPCs that is fully compliant with the informal semantics, and we discuss some consequences. 1