The Architecture of Information Systems (AIS) research group investigates methods, techniques and tools for the design and analysis of process-aware information systems, i.e., systems that support business processes (workflows) in organizations. We are not only interested in these information systems and their architecture, but also try to model and analyze the business processes and organizations they support.

The research concentrates on formalisms for modeling and methods to discover and analyze models. On the one hand formal methods are being used, e.g., the group has a long tradition in Petri-net modeling and analysis. On the other hand, we are interested in modeling languages widely used in industry (EPCs, UML, BPMN, BPEL, etc.). In contrast to many other research groups we do not accept a model as an objective starting point, i.e., we also try to discover process models through process mining and check the conformance of models based on reality.

The AIS group tries to make research results accessible by providing (open-source) software. Notable examples are ProM (process mining and process analysis) and YAWL (workflow management). These implementation efforts illustrate that the problems of tomorrow’s practice are the driving force behind the development of new theory, methods, and tools by AIS.