HuiSheng and Michael,
Thanks for replies!
For once, JbpmTestCase uses Configuration.buildProcessEngine() - i.e. it doesn't accomodate for different configuration files other than a default one.
I also need to be able to access services and commands from non-test classes. The reason being that my code base is broken into different modules and I'm trying to avoid a circular dependency between them by eliminating the need of passing jbpm services and commands around the modules. I'd rather instantiate pvm once and be able to obtain a handle to it anywhere in my codebase.
HuiSheng's suggestion was close to what I'm looking for; unfortunately my pvm is running in JVM, not in anapplication server.