An overview of workflow management: From process modeling to workflow automation infrastructure

Today's business enterprises must deal with global competition, reduce the cost of doing business, and rapidly develop new services and products. To address these requirements enterprises must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and change their information systems and applications to support evolving business processes. Workflow technology facilitates these by providing methodologies and software to support (i) business process modeling to capture business processes as workflow specifications, (ii) business process reengineering to optimize specified processes, and (iii) workflow automation to generate workflow implementations from workflow specifications. This paper provides a high-level overview of the current workflow management methodologies and software products. In addition, we discuss the infrastructure technologies that can address the limitations of current commercial workflow technology and extend the scope and mission of workflow management systems to support increased workflow automation in complex real-world environments involving heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed information systems. In particular, we discuss how distributed object management and customized transaction management can support further advances in the commercial state of the art in this area. Recomended by: Omran Bukhres and e. Kühn     

The OCoN Approach to Workflow Modeling in Object-Oriented Systems

Workflow management aims at modeling and executing application processes in complex technical and organizational environments. Modern information systems are often based on object-oriented design techniques, for instance, the Unified Modeling Language (UML). These systems consist of application objects which collaborate to achieve a common goal. Although application objects collaborate in the context of business processes that can be supported by workflow technology, workflow modeling is typically done with proprietary workflow languages. Hence, two separate formalisms are present for modeling application objects and workflows. In this paper we try to remedy this situation by proposing the use of Object Coordination Nets (OCoN) for workflow modeling. OCoN nets provide a seamless integration with UML structure diagrams. The OCoN formalism also helps to deal with all relevant aspects of modeling complex workflow systems in a scalable and consistent manner.     

面向资源架构的知识协同工作流模型和应用框架

传统的工作流模型注重流程的结构化、自动化控制,难于应付复杂的跨组织、多角色、知识密集型流程的建模和管理.提出一个面向知识和内容协作、支持复杂多角色、多主体(人机、机机)交互的工作流系统模型和应用框架.具体工作有:引入了虚拟资源抽象层,将结构化、半结构化和非结构化资源以及元数据资源纳入统一的管理;提出一个面向资源协同的工作流系统(Resource-Oriented Collaborative Workflow,ROCWF)的过程模型和资源控制模型,过程模型在Petri-Net的基础上扩充了条件变迁和上下文状态控制,资源控制模型基于ICN(Information Control Net),提出一种支持多角色多任务资源协同的控制模型(Task Resource Multi-Role Collaboration Model,TRRC);在此基础上,对流程服务进行了扩展,设计和实现了一组面向资源的REST( Representational State Transfer,表现状态转移)风格的接口.最后给出的实例表明基于此模型和架构,可以更好的支持跨组织、多角色、知识密集型流程的建模和管理,且基于REST架构的扩展提供了一种异构系统间协作的新方法.     

工作流管理系统WFlow中协同建模工具的研究

在传统的工作流管理系统中建模工具一般只支持单用户工作,工作流模型由专业建模人员来建立。随着工作流管理系统应用领域和应用规模的不断扩大,其所管理的企业业务流程已不可能只局限在企业中的一个小部门内部,而是一些跨部门跨企业的业务流程,这些流程只靠单个专业 建模人员已经很难完成其工作流模型的建立,它需要不同人员的分工合作,充分利用各自的专业知识共同来完成其工作流模型的建立。为此,开发了工作流管理系统－－Wflow,就其协同建模工具进行了研讨。     

Workflow modeling for virtual processes: an order-preserving process-view approach

Conducting workflow management allows virtual enterprises to collaboratively manage business processes. Given the diverse requirements of the participants involved in a business process, providing various participants with adequate process information is critical to effective workflow management. This work describes a novel process-view, i.e., an abstracted process which is derived from a base process to provide process abstraction, for modeling a virtual workflow process. The proposed process-view model enhances the conventional activity-based process models by providing different participants with various views of a process. Moreover, this work presents a novel order-preserving approach to derive a process-view from a base process. The approach proposed herein can preserve the original ordering of activities in the base process. Additionally, a formal model is presented to define an order-preserving process-view. Finally, an algorithm is proposed for automatically generating an order-preserving process-view. The proposed approach increases the flexibility and functionality of workflow management systems.     

Context-Aware, Proactive Delivery of Task-Specific Information: The KnowMore Project

From an IT point of view, a key objective of successful knowledge management is to provide relevant and necessary information at the right time to support humans in accomplishing their tasks. This paper presents a prototypical system which meets this objective in an enterprise environment. Based on context information associated with the enterprise's business processes, an integration of workflow engine and information assistant enables active presentation of relevant information to the user. We describe the functionality of the system and elaborate (i) on necessary extensions to the business process models, (ii) the ontologies used for information modeling, and (iii) the integration of workflow engine and active information assistant. The prototype system has been developed in the KnowMore project of the DFKI Knowledge Management Group.     

OBWPA:一种基于本体的工作流参与者柔性分配方法

工作流技术在产品协同设计、知识管理系统等协同工作系统的建模中正起着日益重要的作用.但在目前的工作流模型中,一般通过角色、部门等约束来对活动的参与者进行分配,尚不能依据流程活动中的上下文环境来动态分配任务参与者.这种情况无法满足产品设计等复杂业务过程的需要.提出了一种基于本体的工作流参与者柔性分配方法,并基于该方法建立了工具.用户可通过系统提供的交互工具,依据企业本体中的元素、活动的上下文内容等来分配活动的参与者,增强了系统的灵活性.依据该方法构建的系统,可对复杂产品协同设计过程及设计知识管理过程等提供有效支撑.     

基于Petri网的工作流模型合理性验证

工作流管理系统具有实时性、同步和异步操作等特点,其建模方法是成功实施工作流管理的关键,而工作流模型应该完整地支持工作流定义的概念,正确、高效地反应企业的经营组织过程,为确保工作流的正确运行,必须对工作流模型的合理性进行分析和研究,因此工作流的模型分析和优化成为工作流研究的一个重点[7]。该文从各种研究资料出发,利用工作流模型的合理性定义,给出基于Petri网的工作流模型的验证步骤和方法。     

Leveraging corporate context within knowledge-based document analysis and understanding

Knowledge-based systems for document analysis and understanding (DAU) are quite useful whenever analysis has to deal with the changing of free-form document types which require different analysis components. In this case, declarative modeling is a good way to achieve flexibility. An important application domain for such systems is the business letter domain. Here, high accuracy and the correct assignment to the right people and the right processes is a crucial success factor. Our solution to this proposes a comprehensive knowledge-centered approach: we model not only comparatively static knowledge concerning document properties and analysis results within the same declarative formalism, but we also include the analysis task and the current context of the system environment within the same formalism. This allows an easy definition of new analysis tasks and also an efficient and accurate analysis by using expectations about incoming documents as context information. The approach described has been implemented within the VOPR (VOPR is an acronym for the Virtual Office PRototype.) system. This DAU system gains the required context information from a commercial workflow management system (WfMS) by constant exchanges of expectations and analysis tasks. Further interaction between these two systems covers the delivery of results from DAU to the WfMS and the delivery of corrected results vice versa. Received June 19, 1999 / Revised November 8, 2000     

Integrated process modeling: An ontological evaluation

Process modeling has gained prominence in the information systems modeling area due to its focus on business processes and its usefulness in such business improvement methodologies as Total Quality Management, Business Process Reengineering, and Workflow Management. However, process modeling techniques are not without their criticisms [13]. This paper proposes and uses the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) representation model to analyze the five views — process, data, function, organization and output — provided in the Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS) popularized by Scheer [39, 40, 41]. The BWW representation model attempts to provide a theoretical base on which to evaluate and thus contribute to the improvement of information systems modeling techniques. The analysis conducted in this paper prompts some propositions. It confirms that the process view alone is not sufficient to model all the real-world constructs required. Some other symbols or views are needed to overcome these deficiencies. However, even when considering all five views in combination, problems may arise in representing all potentially required business rules, specifying the scope and boundaries of the system under consideration, and employing a “top-down” approach to analysis and design. Further work from this study will involve the operationalization of these propositions and their empirical testing in the field.     

支持状态机建模的工作流引擎研究

为了能清晰地描述存在较多审批环节和步骤跳转的业务流程,提出利用状态机为流程建模的方法。通过改进传统的关系结构工作流引擎,给出一个支持状态机建模的关系结构工作流引擎的设计方案,详细介绍该引擎的设计原理和实现柔性方法。最后通过一个示例,演示支持状态机建模的工作流引擎的工作机制和实例迁移的过程。原型已经应用到高校学费管理系统中。实践证明,该引擎可以有效地支持状态机建模,并缩短关键业务的开发周期。     

工作流管理的发展历程和趋势

工作流管理被誉为信息系统的后勤,它让合适的人或软件在恰当的时间执行正确的工作,使计算机上的业务处理流程自动化。本文用历史的观点对工作流管理的发展历程进行了回顾,揭示了工作流管理对未来信息系统的影响。根据分析当前的工作流管理系统,我们总结出流程建模和系统结构方面的不足,并对工作流管理的未来发展趋势从建模和
和实施两个方面进行了预测。     

一个基于工作流的CSCW平台

在企业应用中，工作流管理作为一种重要的协同工作技术，为业务过程提供了从建模、分析到控制执行的完整框架．本文基于对工作流技术的研究，详细论述了一个基于工作流的CSCW平台—ECCS系统。     

Workflow simulation for operational decision support using event graph through process mining

It is increasingly common to see computer-based simulation being used as a vehicle to model and analyze business processes in relation to process management and improvement. While there are a number of business process management (BPM) and business process simulation (BPS) methodologies, approaches and tools available, it is more desirable to have a systemic BPS approach for operational decision support, from constructing process models based on historical data to simulating processes for typical and common problems. In this paper, we have proposed a generic approach of BPS for operational decision support which includes business processes modeling and workflow simulation with the models generated. Processes are modeled with event graphs through process mining from workflow logs that have integrated comprehensive information about the control-flow, data and resource aspects of a business process. A case study of a credit card application is presented to illustrate the steps involved in constructing an event graph. The evaluation detail is also given in terms of precision, generalization and robustness. Based on the event graph model constructed, we simulate the process under different scenarios and analyze the simulation logs for three generic problems in the case study: 1) suitable resource allocation plan for different case arrival rates; 2) teamwork performance under different case arrival rates; and 3) evaluation and prediction for personal performances. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach is able to model business processes using event graphs and simulate the processes for common operational decision support which collectively play an important role in process management and improvement.     

Verifying workflow processes: a transformation-based approach

Workflow modeling is a challenging activity and designers are likely to introduce errors, especially in complex industrial processes. Effective process verification is essential at design time because the cost of fixing errors during runtime is substantially higher. However, most user-oriented workflow modeling languages lack formal semantics that hinders such verification. In this paper, we propose a generic approach based on the model transformation to verify workflow processes. The model transformation includes two steps: first, it formalizes the desirable semantics of each modeling element; secondly, it translates a workflow process with clear semantics to an equivalent Petri net. Thus, we can verify the original workflow process using existing Petri net theory and analysis tools. As a comprehensive case study, verifying workflow processes in an industrial modeling language (TiPLM) is presented. Experimental evaluations on verifying real-world business processes validate our approach.     

工作流管理的现状和未来趋势

工作流管理是一个新兴的研究领域,被誉为信息系统的后勤,它让合适的人或软件在恰当的时间执行正确的工作,使计算机上的业务处理流程自动化。本文用历史的观点对工作流管理的发展历程进行了回顾,揭示了工作流管理对未来信息系统的影响。根据分析当前的工作流管理系统,我们总结了两个主要不足之处;（1）工作流管理系统的定义不明确以及缺乏统一的概念模型,（2）工作流管理系统的系统结构和能力上的不足,并对工作流管理的未来发展趋势从建模和实施两个方面进行了预测。     

VIVACE: A framework for the systematic evaluation of variability support in process-aware information systems

ContextThe increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) such as workflow management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, or case management systems, together with the high variability in business processes (e.g., sales processes may vary depending on the respective products and countries), has resulted in large industrial process model repositories. To cope with this business process variability, the proper management of process variants along the entire process lifecycle becomes crucial.ObjectiveThe goal of this paper is to develop a fundamental understanding of business process variability. In particular, the paper will provide a framework for assessing and comparing process variability approaches and the support they provide for the different phases of the business process lifecycle (i.e., process analysis and design, configuration, enactment, diagnosis, and evolution).MethodWe conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) in order to discover how process variability is supported by existing approaches.ResultsThe SLR resulted in 63 primary studies which were deeply analyzed. Based on this analysis, we derived the VIVACE framework. VIVACE allows assessing the expressiveness of a process modeling language regarding the explicit specification of process variability. Furthermore, the support provided by a process-aware information system to properly deal with process model variants can be assessed with VIVACE as well.ConclusionsVIVACE provides an empirically-grounded framework for process engineers that enables them to evaluate existing process variability approaches as well as to select that variability approach meeting their requirements best. Finally, it helps process engineers in implementing PAISs supporting process variability along the entire process lifecycle.     

Extended event–condition–action rules and fuzzy Petri nets based exception handling for workflow management

Exception handling plays a key role in dynamic workflow management that enables streamlined business processes. Handling application-specific exceptions is a knowledge-intensive process involving different decision-making strategies and a variety of knowledge, especially much fuzzy knowledge. Current efforts in workflow exception management are not adequate to support the knowledge-based exception handling. This paper proposes a hybrid exception handling approach based on two extended knowledge models, i.e., generalized fuzzy event–condition–action (GFECA) rule and typed fuzzy Petri net extended by process knowledge (TFPN-PK). The approach realizes integrated representation and reasoning of fuzzy and non-fuzzy knowledge as well as specific application domain knowledge and workflow process knowledge. In addition, it supports two handling strategies, i.e., direct decision and analysis-based decision, during exception management. The approach fills in the gaps in existing related researches, i.e., only providing the capability of direct exception handling and neglecting fuzzy knowledge. Based on TFPN-PK, a weighted fuzzy reasoning algorithm is designed to address the reasoning problem of uncertain goal propositions and known goal concepts by combining forward reasoning with backward reasoning and therefore to facilitate cause analysis and handling of workflow exceptions. A prototype system is developed to implement the proposed approach.     

基于时间Petri网的工作流模型分析

工作流管理的最终目的是实现适当的人在适当的时间执行适当的活动.企业要获得竞争力,需要在工作流模型中考虑与业务过程相关的时间约束.一个考虑时间因素的工作流模型,需要在投入运行前进行时间规范与验证,以保证工作流执行的时间协调.通过为工作流网元素扩展时间属性,得到集成业务过程时间约束的工作流模型??时间约束工作流网(TCWF-nets).基于对业务活动的可调度性分析,提出了时序一致性验证方法,确保工作流执行中活动之间时间交互的安全性.在所附加的时间约束下,该可调度分析方法不仅能够检测某一给定工作流调度的时间可行性,还能对特定的实例给出一个最优调度,使工作流执行延迟最小.研究结果表明,该方法支持业务过程的时间建模与分析,对于丰富现有工作流系统的时间管理功能以及增强现存工作流软件对动态业务环境的适应性具有重要意义.