Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

This paper focuses on two important requirements which must be satisfied before widespread use of process programming in industrial settings becomes a reality. First, a process programming language must be customizable, allowing the user to fit the language into the existing environment, rather than requiring the user to change existing work environments, work procedures, or corporate culture to meet the language's worldview. Second, the process programming language should be accessible to all project personnel, both technical and non-technical. This paper presents the Teamware category object model, a new object model which has been developed to help meet these key requirements. This object model supports development of customized activity types, resource types, and artifact types to support the needs of a particular corporation or project. These new types are presented to non-technical end users as part of a "pre-existing" language. The paper shows how the model differs from traditional class systems. It also compares the customization support provided in Teamware with that of other existing process systems and shows how Teamware's category model allows definition of a higher level of abstraction.