Experiences with Modeling and Verification of Regulations

Information system models commonly describe organizations in terms of the structure of the data they use, the organization of the processes they perform and the operations that will be executed. Yet to date, the models tend to neglect the rules and constraints under which the business operates. Frequently these are not represented or even documented, but hard-coded or hidden into implementations. Compliance with regulations and verification of business rules is difficult when a considerable amount of business knowledge is only represented in code or database constructions and is not modeled in an explicit way that is easy to understand and verify. When properly defined, decision tables offer a solution to several issues in the modeling and verification of regulations, such as guaranteeing consistency, correctness, non-redundancy and completeness.