A system and method for preparing, using and displaying a state model of a process, as an industrial or business process, as a sequence of discrete steps. The state model defines the behavior of the logical objects making up a process model of the process as a set of permitted states and a set of permitted transitions between the permitted states. The method involves creating a state model (61) with certain parameters, a Create/Modify State Transition for a State Model (63) and Associate State Transition with Rules and Conditions (65). These rules are inputted into a graphical user interface which causes appropriate rules to be extracted from a database (67). They are assembled into a state machine execution engine (69) and implemented (70) to produce an enforced state model on targeted business objects (71) and the target business object is enabled (73).