Coordination technology and Petri nets

This paper introduces a new approach to Petri net interpretation. With this approach, properly interpreted Petri nets yield new insights about the mechanics of human work organizations. Furthermore, these insights take technically useful form. In the last few years, the approach has led to the development of an industrial software technology — Coordination technology — for the construction of electronic work environments. The technological and scientific background are described enough to provide motivation for the new approach to Petri net interpretation.