A new approach for flexible workflow automation under the conditions of hybrid and heterogeneous automation- and IT systems is discussed. It is based on the Business Process Management and Notation (BPMN 2.0-ISO standard since 2013) as cross-domain executable automation language. Topic for three representative case studies is the life science automation. The prototype solution allows demonstrating different focusses of the BPM potentials for high level process automation: first to realize a model-driven end-to-end workflow control, second the human task support in semi-automation scenarios and third for workflow automation of development processes.