Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 8, Suppl. 3, 2010 71 Trakia Journal of Sciences, Vol. 8, Suppl. 3, pp 71-87, 2010 Copyright © 2009 Trakia University Available online at: http://www.uni-sz.bg ISSN 1313-7069 (print) ISSN 1313-3551 (online) OBJECT-ORIENTED PROCESS MODELING AND SIMULATION – BORM EXPERIENCE V. Merunka* Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, dept. of Information Engineering, FEM Czech Technical University in Prague, dept. of Software Engineering in Economy, FJFI ABSTRACT BORM (Business Object Relationship Modeling) is a development methodology used to store knowledge of process-based business systems. It has been in development since 1993 and has proved an effective method, popular with both users and analysts. BORM is based on the combination of object-oriented approach and process-based modeling. In this paper, we present BORM use as a tool for capturing process information required in the initial phases of information system development. The BORM effectiveness gained is largely due to an unified and simple method for presenting necessary aspects of the relevant business model, which can be simulated, verified and validated for subsequent software implementation. The BORM methodology makes extensive use of business process modeling towards the area of software engineering. This paper outlines BORM and presents it on an application example created in Craft.CASE analysis and modeling tool. Key words: BORM, business modeling, conceptual modeling, business process, business process simulation, object-oriented approach, MDA, Craft.CASE. INTRODUCTION The attitude of business towards Information Technology (IT) is constantly changing, and increasingly sophisticated. New systems and tools are becoming available. Additionally, there is a constant exchange of ideas between the IT and the business communities, arising out of the development of knowledge-based systems. Today, when modern visual programming tools, combined with the support of rapid web-based application development environments and sophisticated end-user hardware technologies, are available, it would appear that the whole software development process is becoming easier. However, this statement can apply only in those cases where the system complexity of the solution and of the users’ requirements is relatively small. We started our professional career at the beginning of the 1990's as university teachers _________________________________________ *Correspondence to: assoc. prof. Vojtěch Merunka, Ph.D., Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, dept. of Information Engineering, FEM merunka@pef.czu.cz Czech Technical University in Prague, dept. of Software Engineering in Economy, FJFI vojtech.merunka@fjfi.cvut.cz and software engineers, specializing in the new trend of object-oriented programming (OOP), object-oriented languages and object-oriented database systems. This evolution of OOP has been documented in many books and papers, for example (Goldberg and Rubin, 1995; Taylor, 1995; Yourdon, 1995; Darnton & Darnton, 1997). As object technology gradually became the main course of our software production, our projects not only became larger, but also began to place considerable emphasis on integration with already existing business systems. More advanced techniques of OOP such as programming technologies and object-oriented databases are presented in (Ambler, 1997; Catell, 1994). The aim of our projects was to analyze and suggest improvements to business processes, company structure, data flows, organizational structure; as well as providing IT support for them. We soon realized that we needed to carry out analyses of the problems that were supposed to be solved in order to be able to design the system and properly test their solution.