Modelling work distribution mechanisms using Colored Petri Nets

Workflow management systems support business processes and are driven by their models. These models cover different perspectives including the control-flow, resource, and data perspectives. This paper focuses on the resource perspective, i.e., the way the system distributes work based on the structure of the organization and capabilities/qualifications of people. Contemporary workflow management systems offer a wide variety of mechanisms to support the resource perspective. Because the resource perspective is essential for the applicability of such systems, it is important to better understand the mechanisms and their interactions. Our goal is not to evaluate and compare what different systems do, but to understand how they do it. We use Colored Petri Nets (CPNs) to model work distribution mechanisms. First, we provide a basic model that can be seen as a reference model of existing workflow management systems. This model is then extended for three specific systems (Staffware, FileNet, and FLOWer). Moreover, we show how more advanced work distribution mechanisms, referred to as resource patterns, can be modelled and analyzed.

[1]  Michael Rosemann,et al.  Evaluation of Workflow Management Systems - A Meta Model Approach , 1998, Australas. J. Inf. Syst..

[2]  Leon J. Osterweil,et al.  Modeling and Managing Resource Utilization in Process, Workflow, and Activity Coordination , 2001 .

[3]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Workflow Patterns , 2004, Distributed and Parallel Databases.

[4]  Matjaz B. Juric,et al.  Business process execution language for web services , 2004 .

[5]  Peter Dadam,et al.  Correctness criteria for dynamic changes in workflow systems - a survey , 2004, Data Knowl. Eng..

[6]  Mathias Weske,et al.  Formal foundation and conceptual design of dynamic adaptations in a workflow management system , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[7]  Mark Klein,et al.  Introduction to the Special Issue on Adaptive Workflow Systems , 2000, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[8]  van der Wmp Wil Aalst,et al.  Dealing with workflow change: identification of issues and solutions , 2000 .

[9]  Akhil Kumar,et al.  A reference model for team-enabled workflow management systems , 2001, Data Knowl. Eng..

[10]  John Bowers,et al.  Workflow From Within and Without: Technology and Cooperative Work on the Print Industry Shopfloor , 1995, ECSCW.

[11]  van der Wmp Wil Aalst,et al.  Workflow data patterns , 2004 .

[12]  Ramaswamy Chandramouli,et al.  The Queen's Guard: A Secure Enforcement of Fine-grained Access Control In Distributed Data Analytics Platforms , 2001, ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. Secur..

[13]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Business Process Management Demystified: A Tutorial on Models, Systems and Standards for Workflow Management , 2003, Lectures on Concurrency and Petri Nets.

[14]  Weimin Du,et al.  Enterprise workflow resource management , 1999, Proceedings Ninth International Workshop on Research Issues on Data Engineering: Information Technology for Virtual Enterprises. RIDE-VE'99.

[15]  Grzegorz Rozenberg,et al.  High-level Petri Nets: Theory And Application , 1991 .

[16]  ShethAmit,et al.  An overview of workflow management , 1995 .

[17]  Clarence A. Ellis,et al.  A Workflow Change Is a Workflow , 2000, Business Process Management.

[18]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Workflow Verification: Finding Control-Flow Errors Using Petri-Net-Based Techniques , 2000, Business Process Management.

[19]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Beyond workflow management: product-driven case handling , 2001, GROUP.

[20]  Amit P. Sheth,et al.  An overview of workflow management: From process modeling to workflow automation infrastructure , 1995, Distributed and Parallel Databases.

[21]  Manfred Reichert,et al.  Adeptflex—Supporting Dynamic Changes of Workflows Without Losing Control , 1998, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems.

[22]  Kurt Jensen,et al.  Coloured Petri Nets: Basic Concepts, Analysis Methods and Practical Use. Vol. 2, Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[23]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Business Process Management, Models, Techniques, and Empirical Studies , 2000 .

[24]  Kurt Jensen,et al.  Coloured Petri Nets: Modelling and Validation of Concurrent Systems , 2009 .

[25]  van Fm Frans Eijnatten.  The paradigm that changed the work place , 1995 .

[26]  Christoph Bussler,et al.  Workflow Management: Modeling Concepts, Architecture and Implementation , 1996 .

[27]  Michael zur Muehlen,et al.  Organizational Management in Workflow Applications - Issues and Perspectives , 2004, Inf. Technol. Manag..

[28]  Frank Leymann,et al.  Production Workflow: Concepts and Techniques , 1999 .

[29]  Lars G Fischer.  Workflow Handbook 2002, Workflow Management Coalition , 2002 .

[30]  Wolfgang Reisig,et al.  Lectures on Petri Nets I: Basic Models , 1996, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[31]  Thomas Herrmann,et al.  Semistructured Models are Surprisingly Useful for User-Centered Design , 2000, COOP.

[32]  Ming-Chien Shan,et al.  Policies in a resource manager of workflow systems: modeling, enforcement and management , 1999, Proceedings 15th International Conference on Data Engineering (Cat. No.99CB36337).

[33]  Giorgio De Michelis,et al.  Improving Flexibility of Workflow Management Systems , 2000, Business Process Management.

[34]  Peter Dadam,et al.  Correctness criteria for dynamic changes in workflow systems--a survey q , 2004 .

[35]  Wil M.P. van der Aalst,et al.  Modeling work distribution mechanisms using colored petri nets , 2005 .

[36]  M. Z. Muehlen,et al.  Workflow Management Coalition , 2000 .

[37]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Workflow Resource Patterns: Identification, Representation and Tool Support , 2005, CAiSE.

[38]  Wil vanderAalst,et al.  Workflow Management: Models, Methods, and Systems , 2004 .

[39]  van der Wmp Wil Aalst,et al.  Workflow resource patterns , 2004 .

[40]  Rebecca E. Grinter.  Workflow Systems: Occasions for Success and Failure , 2000, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[41]  M. Z. Muehlen.  Evaluation of Workflow Management Systems using Meta Models , 1999, HICSS.

[42]  Fabio Casati,et al.  Workflow Evolution , 1996, ER.

[43]  M. zur Muhlen.  Evaluation of workflow management systems using meta models , 1999 .

[44]  Tony Andrews.  Business Process Execution Language for Web Services Version 1.1 , 2003 .

[45]  Boudewijn F. van Dongen,et al.  The ProM Framework: A New Era in Process Mining Tool Support , 2005, ICATPN.

[46]  Mathias Weske,et al.  Case handling: a new paradigm for business process support , 2005, Data Knowl. Eng..

[47]  W.M.P. van der Aalst,et al.  Don't go with the flow: web services composition standards exposed , 2003 .

[48]  Lars Michael Kristensen,et al.  The practitioner’s guide to coloured Petri nets , 1998, International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer.

[49]  Akhil Kumar,et al.  Dynamic Work Distribution in Workflow Management Systems: How to Balance Quality and Performance , 2002, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[50]  Steffen Staab,et al.  Web Services: Been There, Done That? , 2003, IEEE Intell. Syst..

[51]  Christoph Buj.  Policy Resolution for Workflow Management Systems , 1995 .