一个组织间松散耦合跨组织工作流的仿真模型

为了解决松散耦合跨组织工作流的仿真建模问题,以染色Petri网为理论基础,将颜色集、染色函数、资源库所、等待库所、忙库所、开始变迁、结束变迁、角色、组织、时间函数、资源函数和变迁函数引入到IOWF(inter-organizational workflow),提出了染色多维跨组织工作流网CMD/IOWF(colored multi-dimension/IOWF).基于CMD/IOWF,讨论了组织间松散耦合跨组织工作流中多个不同项目工作流实例通过资源共享和活动同步相互耦合以及与仿真相关的资源约束和时间的建模问题.通过定义输入/输出、状态、事件、时间推进函数和状态转移函数,给出了一个组织间松散耦合的多个跨组织工作流的仿真模型.基于该模型的仿真分析可以求解组织间松散耦合跨组织工作流的关键性能指标,包括:对应项目工作流实例的平均执行时间、平均执行成本及其关于组织的分布,各项目的资源利用率.最后,以一个实例验证了提出模型的有效性.

A Simulation Model of Loosely Coupled Inter-Organizational Workflows

To solve the issue of modeling for loosely coupled inter-organizational workflows (LCIOWF), based on the colored Petri nets, the colored multi-dimension inter-organizational workflow (CMD/IOWF) Nets is proposed through importing color-set, colored function, resource places, waiting places, busy places, begin transitions, end transitions, roles, organizations, time functions, resource functions and transition functions into IOWF. Based on CMD/IOWF, the issue of modeling for multiple workflow instances in LCIOWF (loosely coupled inter-organizational workflow) coupling through resources sharing and activity synchronizing is discussed, as well as the issue of modeling for resources constraint and time relative to simulation. By means of defining inputs/outputs, states, events, time advancing functions and state transferring functions, a simulation model of loosely coupled inter-organizational workflows is presented. Based on the proposed simulation model, the key performance indexes of loosely coupled inter-organizational workflows can be obtained, which are the average execution time, the average execution cost of workflow instances of a respective project, their distributions among organizations and the resource-utilization ratio of a respective project. Finally, to verify validity of the proposed model, a case of loosely coupled inter-organizational workflows simulation is demonstrated.