Showing papers on "Workflow published in 2003"

Workflow Patterns

Abstract: Differences in features supported by the various contemporary commercial workflow management systems point to different insights of suitability and different levels of expressive power. The challenge, which we undertake in this paper, is to systematically address workflow requirements, from basic to complex. Many of the more complex requirements identified, recur quite frequently in the analysis phases of workflow projects, however their implementation is uncertain in current products. Requirements for workflow languages are indicated through workflow patterns. In this context, patterns address business requirements in an imperative workflow style expression, but are removed from specific workflow languages. The paper describes a number of workflow patterns addressing what we believe identify comprehensive workflow functionality. These patterns provide the basis for an in-depth comparison of a number of commercially available workflow management systems. As such, this paper can be seen as the academic response to evaluations made by prestigious consulting companies. Typically, these evaluations hardly consider the workflow modeling language and routing capabilities, and focus more on the purely technical and commercial aspects.

Business process management: a survey

Abstract: Business Process Management (BPM) includes methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of operational business processes. It can be considered as an extension of classical Workflow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. Although the practical relevance of BPM is undisputed, a clear definition of BPM and related acronyms such as BAM, BPA, and STP are missing. Moreover, a clear scientific foundation is missing. In this paper, we try to demystify the acronyms in this domain, describe the state-of-the-art technology, and argue that BPM could benefit from formal methods/languages (cf. Petri nets, process algebras, etc.).

Workflow mining: a survey of issues and approaches

Abstract: Many of today's information systems are driven by explicit process models. Workflow management systems, but also ERP, CRM, SCM, and B2B, are configured on the basis of a workflow model specifying the order in which tasks need to be executed. Creating a workflow design is a complicated time-consuming process and typically there are discrepancies between the actual workflow processes and the processes as perceived by the management. To support the design of workflows, we propose the use of workflow mining. Starting point for workflow mining is a so-called "workflow log" containing information about the workflow process as it is actually being executed. In this paper, we introduce the concept of workflow mining and present a common format for workflow logs. Then we discuss the most challenging problems and present some of the workflow mining approaches available today.

Mapping Abstract Complex Workflows onto Grid Environments

Abstract: In this paper we address the problem of automatically generating job workflows for the Grid. These workflows describe the execution of a complex application built from individual application components. In our work we have developed two workflow generators: the first (the Concrete Workflow Generator CWG) maps an abstract workflow defined in terms of application-level components to the set of available Grid resources. The second generator (Abstract and Concrete Workflow Generator, ACWG) takes a wider perspective and not only performs the abstract to concrete mapping but also enables the construction of the abstract workflow based on the available components. This system operates in the application domain and chooses application components based on the application metadata attributes. We describe our current ACWG based on AI planning technologies and outline how these technologies can play a crucial role in developing complex application workflows in Grid environments. Although our work is preliminary, CWG has already been used to map high energy physics applications onto the Grid. In one particular experiment, a set of production runs lasted 7 days and resulted in the generation of 167,500 events by 678 jobs. Additionally, ACWG was used to map gravitational physics workflows, with hundreds of nodes onto the available resources, resulting in 975 tasks, 1365 data transfers and 975 output files produced.

Rediscovering workflow models from event-based data using little thumb

Abstract: Contemporary workflow management systems are driven by explicit process models, i.e., a completely specified workflow design is required in order to enact a given workflow process. Creating a workflow design is a complicated time-consuming process and typically, there are discrepancies between the actual workflow processes and the processes as perceived by the management. Therefore, we propose a technique for rediscovering workflow models. This technique uses workflow logs to discover the workflow process as it is actually being executed. The workflow log contains information about events taking place. We assume that these events are totally ordered and each event refers to one task being executed for a single case. This information can easily be extracted from transactional information systems (e.g., Enterprise Resource Planning systems such as SAP and Baan). The rediscovering technique proposed in this paper can deal with noise and can also be used to validate workflow processes by uncovering and measuring the discrepancies between prescriptive models and actual process executions.

Model-based verification of Web service compositions

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss a model-based approach to verifying Web service compositions for Web service implementations. The approach supports verification against specification models and assigns semantics to the behavior of implementation model so as to confirm expected results for both the designer and implementer. Specifications of the design are modeled in UML (Unified Modeling Language), in the form of message sequence charts (MSC), and mechanically compiled into the finite state process notation (FSP) to concisely describe and reason about the concurrent programs. Implementations are mechanically translated to FSP to allow a trace equivalence verification process to be performed. By providing early design verification, the implementation, testing, and deployment of Web service compositions can be eased through the understanding of the differences, limitations and undesirable traces allowed by the composition. The approach is supported by a suite of cooperating tools for specification, formal modeling and trace animation of the composition workflow.

myGrid: personalised bioinformatics on the information grid

Abstract: Motivation: The my Grid project aims to exploit Grid technology, with an emphasis on the Information Grid, and provide middleware layers that make it appropriate for the needs of bioinformatics. my Grid is building high level services for data and application integration such as resource discovery, workflow enactment and distributed query processing. Additional services are provided to support the scientific method and best practice found at the bench but often neglected at the workstation, notably provenance management, change notification and personalisation. Results: We give an overview of these services and their metadata. In particular, semantically rich metadata expressed using ontologies necessary to discover, select and compose services into dynamic workflows. Availability: Software is available on request from the authors and information from http://www.mygrid.org.uk.

GridFlow: workflow management for grid computing

Abstract: Grid computing is becoming a mainstream technology for large-scale distributed resource sharing and system integration. Workflow management is emerging as one of the most important grid services. In this work, a workflow management system for grid computing, called GridFlow, is presented, including a user portal and services of both global grid workflow management and local grid sub-workflow scheduling. Simulation, execution and monitoring functionalities are provided at the global grid level, which work on top of an existing agent-based grid resource management system. At each local grid, sub-workflow scheduling and conflict management are processed on top of an existing performance prediction based task scheduling system. A fuzzy timing technique is applied to address new challenges of workflow management in a cross-domain and highly dynamic grid environment. A case study is given and corresponding results indicate that local and global grid workflow management can coordinate with each other to optimise workflow execution time and solve conflicts of interest.

Agent oriented software engineering with INGENIAS

Abstract: INGENIAS is both a methodology and a set of tools for development of multi-agent systems (MAS). As a methodology, it tries to integrate results from other proposals and considers the MAS from five complementary viewpoints: organization, agent, tasks/goals, interactions, and environment. It is supported by a set of tools for modelling (graphical editor), documentation and code generation (for different agent platforms). INGENIAS is the result of the experience developing MAS in different areas, such as workflow management systems, recommender systems, Robocode teams, and PC assistants

E-services: a look behind the curtain

Abstract: The emerging paradigm of electronic services promises to bring to distributed computation and services the flexibility that the web has brought to the sharing of documents. An understanding of fundamental properties of e-service composition is required in order to take full advantage of the paradigm. This paper examines proposals and standards for e-services from the perspectives of XML, data management, workflow, and process models. Key areas for study are identified, including behavioral service signatures, verification and synthesis techniques for composite services, analysis of service data manipulation commands, and XML analysis applied to service specifications. We give a sample of the relevant results and techniques in each of these areas.

Web Services and Business Transactions

Abstract: Process oriented workflow systems and e-business applications require transactional support in order to orchestrate loosely coupled services into cohesive units of work and guarantee consistent and reliable execution. In this paper we introduce a multi-level transaction model that provides the necessary independence for the participating resource managers, e.g., local database and workflow servers, of organisations engaging in business transactions that are composed of interacting web services. We also present a taxonomy of e-business transaction features such as unconventional atomicity criteria, the need for support for business conversations and the need for distinguishing between three basic business transaction phases. In addition, we review current research and standard activities and outline the main ingredients of a business transaction framework necessary for building flexible e-business applications.

XML-Based Schema Definition for Support of Interorganizational Workflow

Abstract: The full potential of the Web as a medium for electronic commerce can be realized only when multiple partners in a supply chain can route information among themselves in a seamless way. Commerce on the Internet is still far from being "friction free," because business partners cannot exchange information about their business processes in an automated manner. In this paper, we propose the design for aneXchangeable Routing Language (XRL) using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) syntax. XML is a means for trading partners to exchange business data electronically. The novel contribution of our work is to show how XML can also be used to describe workflow process schemas to support flexible routing of documents in the Internet environment. The design of XRL is grounded in Petri nets, which is a well-known formalism. By using this formalism, it is possible to analyze correctness and performance of workflows described in XRL. Architectures to facilitate interoperation through loose and tight integration are also discussed. Examples illustrate how this approach can be used for implementing interorganizational electronic commerce applications. As a proof of concept, we have also developedXRL/flower, a prototype implementation of a workflow management system based on XRL.

Fundamentals of control flow in workflows

Abstract: Although workflow management emerged as a research area well over a decade ago, little consensus has been reached as to what should be essential ingredients of a workflow specification language. As a result, the market is flooded with workflow management systems, based on different paradigms and using a large variety of concepts. The goal of this paper is to establish a formal foundation for control-flow aspects of workflow specification languages, that assists in understanding fundamental properties of such languages, in particular their expressive power. Workflow languages can be fully characterized in terms of the evaluation strategy they use, the concepts they support, and the syntactic restrictions they impose. A number of results pertaining to this classification will be proven. This should not only aid those developing workflow specifications in practice, but also those developing new workflow engines.

Team Member Functional Background and Involvement in Management Teams: Direct Effects and the Moderating Role of Power Centralization

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between a team member's functional background and two forms of intrateam involvement: centrality in a team's workflow and involvement in team decision making....

Business process management demystified : a tutorial on models, systems and standards for workflow management

Abstract: Over the last decade there has been a shift from “data-aware” information systems to “process-aware” information systems. To support business processes an enterprise information system needs to be aware of these processes and their organizational context. Business Process Management (BPM) includes methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of such operational business processes. BPM can be considered as an extension of classical Workflow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. This tutorial introduces models, systems, and standards for the design, analysis, and enactment of workflow processes. Petri nets are used for the modeling and analysis of workflows. Using Petri nets as a formal basis, contemporary systems, languages, and standards for BPM and WFM are discussed. Although it is clear that Petri nets can serve as a solid foundation for BPM/WFM technology, in reality systems, languages, and standards are developed in an ad-hoc fashion. To illustrate this XPDL, the “Lingua Franca” proposed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), is analyzed using a set of 20 basic workflow patterns. This analysis exposes some of the typical semantic problems restricting the application of BPM/WFM technology.

Analysis of Web Services Composition Languages: The Case of BPEL4WS

Abstract: Web services composition is an emerging paradigm for application integration within and across organizational boundaries. A landscape of languages and techniques for web services composition has emerged and is continuously being enriched with new proposals from different vendors and coalitions. However, little effort has been dedicated to systematically evaluate the capabilities and limitations of these languages and techniques. The work reported in this paper is a step in this direction. It presents an in-depth analysis of the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS) with respect to a framework composed of workflow and communication patterns.

On The Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2003: CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE

Abstract: Process interconnection mechanisms are necessary to co-ordinate geographically distributed business processes in order to strength awareness inside virtual enterprises, to facilitate multinational e-transactions, etc Actually, existing business process modelling and enactment systems (workflow systems, project management tools, shared agendas, to do lists, etc) have been mainly developed to suit enterprise internal needs Thus, most of these systems are not adapted to inter-enterprise co-operation As we are interested in workflow processes, we aim, through this paper, to provide a model supporting dynamic heterogeneous workflow process interconnection We consider the interconnection of enterprise workflow processes as the management of a workflow of workflows in which several heterogeneous workflow systems coexist This paper introduces our process interconnection model, its implementation, and its validation through an experimentation

Design and control of workflow processes: business process management for the service industry

Abstract: Workflow Modeling.- Workflow Design.- Performance Evaluation of Workflows.- Resource Allocation in Workflows.- Heuristic Workflow Redesign.- System and Practical Experience.- Conclusion.

A system and process for electronic subrogation, inter-organization workflow management, inter-organization transaction processing and optimized web-baser user interaction

Abstract: An intelligent electronic subrogation network ('ESN') automates intra-organization workflow, inter-organization workflow and collaboration for insurance subrogation. This ESN is facilitated by a novel system of architecture and process that includes an inter-organizational workflow management system, an inter-organizational transaction processing system, and a unique mechanism for optimizing and enriching web-based user interaction within any such system.

Automated utility supply management system integrating data sources including geographic information systems (GIS) data

Abstract: An automated management system for managing data, outage repair, load switching, job workflow and crew dispatching, crew workflow, installation, maintenance and restoration of utility services by integrating geographic information systems (GIS) data with many other data sources so as to gather, transform, manipulate, analyze, and produce desired information for continuously supplying utility and relevant services. The data sources include customer information systems (CIS) and billing data, interactive voice recognition (IVR) call management data, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), mobile crew management (MCM) data, automatic meter reading (AMR) data, automated vehicle location (AVL) data, engineering analysis data supported by 3rd party software packages (such as load monitoring and balancing), etc. In particular, the system allows an on-site engineer to retrieve data (ex. field maps, work orders, codes) or enter, via a portable device, inspection data (ex. such as poles or underground facilities, code violations).

Product-Based Workflow Design

Abstract: In manufacturing, the interaction between the design of a product and the process to manufacture this product is studied in detail. Consider, for example, material requirements planning (MRP) as part of current enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which is mainly driven by the bill of material (BOM). For information-intensive products such as insurances, and many other services, the workflow process typically evolves or is redesigned without careful consideration of the structure and characteristics of the product. In this paper, we present a method named product-based workflow design (PBWD). PBWD takes the product specification and three design criteria as a starting point, after which formal models and techniques are used to derive a favorable new design of the workflow process. The ExSpect tool is used to support PBWD. Finally, using a real case study, we demonstrate that a full evaluation of the search space for a workflow design may be feasible depending on the chosen design criteria and the specific nature of the product specifications.

KnowledgeScope: managing knowledge in context

Abstract: Knowledge repositories have been implemented in many organizations, but they often suffer from non-use. This research considers two key design factors that cause non-use: the extra burden on users to document knowledge in the repository, and the lack of a standard knowledge structure that facilitates knowledge sharing among users with different perspectives. We propose a design of a knowledge management system called KnowledgeScope that addresses these problems through (1) an integrated workflow support capability that captures and retrieves knowledge as an organizational process proceeds, i.e., within the context in which it is created and used, and (2) a process meta-model that organizes that knowledge and context in a knowledge repository. In this paper, we describe this design and report the results from implementing it in a real-life organization.

W-RBAC — A Workflow Security Model Incorporating Controlled Overriding of Constraints

Abstract: This paper presents a pair of role-based access control models for workflow systems, collectively known as the W-RBAC models. The first of these models, W0-RBAC is based on a framework that couples a powerful RBAC-based permission service and a workflow component with clear separation of concerns for ease of administration of authorizations. The permission service is the focus of the work, providing an expressive logic-based language for the selection of users authorized to perform workflow tasks, with preference ranking. W1-RBAC extends the basic model by incorporating exception handling capabilities through controlled and systematic overriding of constraints.

Grid workflow: a flexible failure handling framework for the grid

Abstract: The generic, heterogeneous, and dynamic nature of the grid requires a new from of failure recovery mechanism to address its unique requirements such as support for diverse failure handling strategies, separation of failure handling strategies from application codes, and user-defined exception handling. We here propose a grid workflow system (grid-WFS), a flexible failure handling framework for the grid, which addresses these grid-unique failure recovery requirements. Central to the framework is flexibility by the use of workflow structure as a high-level recovery policy specification. We show how this use of high-level workflow structure allows users to achieve failure recovery in a variety of ways depending on the requirements and constraints of their applications. We also demonstrate that this use of workflow structure enables users to not only rapidly prototype and investigate failure handling strategies, but also easily change them by simply modifying the encompassing workflow structure, while the application code remains intact. Finally, we present an experimental evaluation of our framework using a simulation, demonstrating the value of supporting multiple failure recovery techniques in grid systems to achieve high performance in the presence of failures.

Workflow Mining: Current Status and Future Directions

Abstract: Current workflow management systems require the explicit design of the workflows that express the business process of an organization. This process design is very time consuming and error prone. Considerable work has been done to develop heuristics to mine event-data logs to produce a process model that can support the workflow design process. However, all the existing heuristic-based mining algorithms have their limitations. To achieve more insight into these limitations the starting point in this paper is the α-algorithm [3] for which it is proved under which conditions and process constructs the algorithm works. After presentation of the α-algorithm, a classification is given of the process constructs that are difficult to handle for this type of algorithms. Then, for some constructs (i.e. short loops) it is illustrated in which way the α-algorithm can be extended so that it can correctly discover these constructs.

System and method for building and execution of platform-neutral generic services' client applications

Abstract: A system and method of building component applications are provided. Component applications are executed on terminal devices, which communicate with a schema-based service via a network and the Internet. The component applications comprise data components, presentation components, and message components, which are written a structured definition language such as XML code. The component applications further comprise workflow components which can be written as a series of instructions such as in a subset of ECMAScript, and are embedded in the XML code.

Grid workflow: a flexible framework for fault tolerance in the grid

Abstract: Over the past few years, the Grid has emerged as a new infrastructure for developing so-called Grid applications by enabling the integration of instruments, display, and computing resources that are managed by diverse organizations in widespread locations. Even though the geographically distributed and non-centralized administrative nature of the Grid can make it prone to failures during task execution, the research focus so far has not been on fault tolerance. This thesis is intended to improve this situation by presenting the Grid Workflow System (Grid-WFS) designed to provide a special form of fault tolerance for the Grid; a generic failure detection mechanism and a flexible failure handling framework. The generic failure detection mechanism enables the detection of generic task crash failures. In addition, the mechanism allows users to define exceptions to handle task-specific failures without requiring any modifications to both the Grid protocol and the local policy of each Grid node. This thesis describes how to overcome the challenge by employing an event notification mechanism that is based on the interpretation of notification messages being delivered from different entities residing on each Grid node. The flexible failure handling framework allows users to achieve failure recovery in a variety of ways depending on the requirements and constraints of their applications. Central to the framework is flexibility in handling failures. The heterogeneity of the Grid environment and applications, and the dynamic nature of the Grid dictate that a single monolithic failure recovery strategy is not appropriate. This thesis describes how to achieve the flexibility by the use of workflow structure as a high-level recovery policy specification, which enables support for multiple failure recovery techniques, the separation of failure handling strategies from the application code, and user-defined exception handlings. Finally, this thesis presents an experimental evaluation of the Grid-WFS using a simulation, demonstrating the value of supporting multiple failure recovery techniques in Grid systems to achieve high performance in the presence of failures.

Soundness and separability of workflow nets in the stepwise refinement approach

Abstract: Workflow nets are recognized as a modelling paradigm for the business process modelling. We introduce and investigate several correctness notions for workflow nets, ranging from proper termination of cases to their mutual independence. We define refinement operators for nets and investigate preservation of correctness through these operators. This gives rise to a class of nets that are provably correct.

System and method for workflow process management

Abstract: Many business processes involve manually controlling and monitoring informational artifacts, such as documents or insurance claims, through a workflow process. The present invention provides a dynamic and flexible method for controlling workflow processes by arranging complex tasks into predefined sequences having decision points that control the process to completion. The method comprises defining procedural components of a process flow model, defining control links for connecting the procedural components, defining data components of a process data model, defining data links for connecting the procedural components and the data components, and invoking the procedural components for producing a workflow process result. The procedural components comprise nodes in the workflow process, which may be automated, interactive or manual procedures. The nodes are connected and executed in a defined sequence determined by control links. The data components comprise data sets connected to procedural components by the data links.