Glages: From Process Models to Business-Domain Models

A business-domain model is not created by placing several process diagrams next to one another. It requires a coherent definition of how the processes share Entities, states, facts, rules, and results.

Glages begins with reusable process models and composes them into a model of an entire class of business.

E-commerce provides a clear example.

The Processes Are Connected

An e-commerce business may contain order, payment, inventory reservation, shipment, delivery, modification, return, refund, claim handling, and customer service.

Each process can be studied separately, but the business operates through their relationships.

A payment authorization may allow inventory to be reserved. A failed payment may block further fulfillment. A shipment process prepares and initiates the sending of an item, including what is sent, from where, to whom, by which method, with which data, and through which carrier. Delivery begins after that handoff and covers movement, intermediate states, attempts, and the final delivery result.

An order modification may be permitted before shipment but blocked after handoff. A refund may depend on whether payment was captured, whether part of the order was already refunded, and whether a return is required.

These are not merely integrations between software modules. They are relationships in the meaning of the business activity.

Composition Creates Shared Meaning

A composed business-domain model defines how the same Entity participates in several processes and how the result of one process changes the conditions of another.

The order does not mean one thing in payment and another thing in shipment. The model must preserve one coherent identity and state history. The amount paid, amount shipped, amount returned, and amount refunded must remain compatible.

Composition therefore requires more than calling one process after another. It must define:

• shared Entities and references;
• compatible states;
• dependencies between processes;
• conditions that cross process boundaries;
• results that enable or block later processes;
• stopping conditions for the combined activity.

The composed model becomes the common business foundation on which different products may be built.

The Domain Model Is Still Reusable

A business-domain model is larger than a reusable process model, but it is not yet company-specific.

The e-commerce model describes the common structure of e-commerce activity. It does not assume that every buyer uses the same order database, payment provider, warehouse system, carrier, or customer-service application.

Those differences belong to company connection.

This preserves two levels of reuse. Process models can participate in several domains, and the composed domain model can support several companies in the same market.

Why This Matters for Product Development

A company building a vertical AI product usually starts by reconstructing the domain. It must decide what the main Entities are, how processes relate, which states matter, which exceptions exist, and which actions are valid.

That work is expensive, hard to verify, and repeated by many companies targeting the same market.

A composed business-domain model provides a defined starting point. The product company can focus on its customers, interface, integrations, deployment, and commercial differentiation while using an already structured model of the underlying activity.

The same model can support a customer-service backend, a transactional self-service system, an ERP extension, a compliance product, or a complete vertical application.

From Isolated Automation to a Business Foundation

The composition path is:

reusable process models
→ defined relationships between processes
→ coherent business-domain model
→ company connection
→ operational product

The important step is the middle one. A business-domain model is valuable because the processes no longer have to rediscover one another during implementation or execution.

The model defines the connected business before an agent or program acts inside it.