Introducing business process into legacy information systems

The majority of legacy information systems running today were built without adopting a business process approach. In these systems, the control over the execution of the process activities is partial, leaving out all those activities that have not been automated. Moreover, the activities that constitute the process are not formally interconnected, causing loss of the overall business process context. This paper presents a method for gradually integrating the underlying business processes supported by these systems, without disrupting the automation they already support. The method is particularly attractive for legacy systems that are expected to last a long time and whose redevelopment costs are high.