Patent ID: 6968533

Claim:
An automated process description apparatus for describing a process using a model wherein a plurality of activities have dependence relationships via a resource, the process description apparatus comprising: means for storing a plurality of definitions of epistemological grounds for domains of the process to be described; means for storing attributes of the activities of the process to be described for each of the epistemological grounds; means for storing attributes of the resource of the processes to be described for each of the epistemological grounds; means for storing attributes of the dependence relationships of the process to be described for each of the epistemological grounds; means for inputting a definition of the epistemological grounds for classifying the process; means for analyzing and describing the process from the attributes of the activities, the attributes of the dependence relationship, and the attributes of the resource of the process based on the defined epistemological grounds; means for determining whether or not an end condition of description defined in the epistemological grounds is satisfied; means for repeating the inputting and analyzing steps until the end condition is determined to be satisfied; means for characterizing an E-R model, wherein E and R of the E-R model are related to activity and dependence relationship respectively and a polynomial link of n to m is allowed in R; and means for displaying the activities, the resource, and the dependence relationship as figure elements, wherein the epistemological grounds includes constraint information concerning definitions of the activity, resource, and the dependence relationship, and sets a purpose or a course of the process to be described on the basis of the domain.