A policy-based authorization model for workflow-enabled dynamic process management

Although workflow has been widely used to support the modeling and execution of business process, the majority of current workflow management systems are not designed and suited for supporting dynamic business processes. One of the deficiencies is the inability to model realistically the organization of an enterprise to manage the dynamic human-centric business processes. A framework for workflow-enabled dynamic business process management is described in the paper. It includes an organizational model and an authorization model for supporting dynamic business processes. More specifically, authorization policies are expressed in an SQL-like language which can be easily rewritten into query sentences for execution. In addition, the framework supports dynamic integration and execution of multiple access control polices from disparate enterprise resources. Finally, a prototype implementation of the dynamic business process management framework is described.     

Magi: an architecture for mobile and disconnected workflow

Automated workflow systems do not yet adequately address information mobility or tasks disconnected from the rest of a business process. While the current Web infrastructure lends itself to disseminating information, it also inhibits the decentralization of process definitions and their execution required by workflow systems. The Micro-Apache Generic Interface which is based on the popular Apache HTTP server, is an architecture that can overcome some of these limitations     

A role-oriented service system architecture for enterprise process collaboration

Workflow management is a key technique for coordinating various business processes. Traditional workflow systems are often built with the client/server architecture, in which, a single workflow server takes the responsibility of the entire operation. This paper discusses a model-driven process enactment environment, which can support an enterprise businesses collaboration. Some key technologies regarding models and the system are discussed in the paper, including the mappings between activities in process models and the service function of applications, how to use XML in the process model, and other workflow engine techniques. A software architecture supporting role-oriented services within the process-driven enterprise enactment environment has been proposed and implemented. The proposed framework has been validated with a case study in the 4PL business system.     

Supporting virtual enterprise systems using agent coordination

Open environments like the Internet or corporate intranets enable a large number of interested enterprises to access, filter, process and present information on an as-needed basis. These environments support modern applications, such as virtual enterprises and interorganisational workflow management systems, which involve a number of heterogeneous resources, services and processes. However, any execution of a virtual enterprise system would yield to disjoining and error-prone behaviour without appropriate techniques to coordinate the various business processes. This paper reports on the design and implementation of a flexible agent-based framework for supporting the coordination of virtual enterprises and workflow management systems. The paper also shows how an agent coordination infrastructure, which is explained by social constraints, can impact on the engineering of highly dynamic virtual enterprises and workflow management systems by presenting a simple case study.     

Modeling and Managing Interactions among Business Processes

Most workflow management systems (WfMSs) only support the separate andindependent execution of business processes. However, processes often needto interact with each other, in order to synchronize the execution of theiractivities, to exchange process data, to request execution of services, orto notify progresses in process execution. Recent market trends also raisethe need for cooperation and interaction between processes executed in differentorganizations, posing additional challenges. In fact, in order to reduce costsand provide better services, companies are pushed to increase cooperation and toform virtual enterprises, where business processes span across organizationalboundaries and are composed of cooperating workflows executed in differentorganizations. Workflow interaction in a cross-organizational environment iscomplicated by the heterogeneity of workflow management platforms on top ofwhich workflows are defined and executed and by the different and possiblycompeting business policies and business goals that drive process executionin each organization.In this paper we propose a model and system that enable interactionbetween workflows executed in the same or in different organizations. Weextend traditional workflow models by allowing workflows to publish andsubscribe to events, and by enabling the definition of points in the processexecution where events should be sent or received. Event notifications aremanaged by a suitable event service that is capable of filtering andcorrelating events, and of dispatching them to the appropriate targetworkflow instances. The extended model can be easily mapped onto anyworkflow model, since event specific constructs can be specified by means ofordinary workflow activities, for which we provide the implementation. Inaddition, the event service is easily portable to different platforms, anddoes not require integration with the WfMS that supports the cooperatingworkflows. Therefore, the proposed approach is applicable in virtually anyenvironment and is independent on the specific platform adopted     

企业工作流机模型的设计

工作流机是一个为工作流实例的执行提供运行服务环境的软件或引擎。它是工作流执行服务的核心。是执行企业经营过程的业务操作系统的内核。它的运转也就带动了企业的经营活动。本文在调查企业的组织结构和业务过程下，着重研究和描述工作流组成与运行方法。     

基于实例的动态定义执行工作流引擎研究

在强调灵活和快速的业务竞争领域,目前大部分工作流管理系统产品无法完全满足非结构化业务流程对灵活性与复杂性的要求。本文提出一种基于实例的动态定义和执行的轻量级工作流引擎,可实现非结构化业务流程的规范化建模和个性化建模,增强对非结构化业务流程的柔性描述和执行能力。该引擎在深圳电信中得到应用,提高了企业流程的运
营效率。     

一个基于持续消息的分布式工作流管理模型

提出了一种新的分布式结构,在这个结构中,排除了工作流系统对一个集中式数据库的依赖,而是用持续消息的方法将与过程执行有关的信息存储起来,使过程的执行是完全分布式的,并且每个节点都是各自独立的。采用这种方式能增强对错误的恢复能力以及构造系统的灵活性和扩展性。     

Organizational Management in Workflow Applications – Issues and Perspectives

Business processes automation requires the specification of process structures as well as the definition of resources involved in the execution of these processes. While the modeling of business processes and workflows is well researched, the link between the organizational elements and process activities is less well understood, and current developments in the web services choreography area completely neglect the organizational aspect of workflow applications. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the organizational aspects of workflow technology in the context of the workflow life cycle, to provide a review of existing work, and to develop guidelines for the design of a workflow-enabled organization, which can be used by both workflow vendors and users.     

ObjectFlow: Towards a process management infrastructure

As businesses feel competitive and economic pressures to automate and streamline their operations, they examine their day-to-day business processes and look to business process reengineering pratices to provide solutions. Improved networking capabilities and the widescale adoption of open systems architectures have allowed businesses to tie their information systems together and share data across departments. The challenge now involves coordinating and automating the flow of work between people and groups in an organization. This has prompted the emergence of a new kind of infrastructure, workflow enabler, which provides a model for business processes, and a foundation on which to build solutions supporting the execution and management of business processes. This article examines the technology trends, business benefits, and requirements which have lead to this development. It describes the logical structure and an operational model of an open workflow system, and positions ObjectFlow, a software product, within this framework to illustrate the concepts.     

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.     

基于状态信息的分散式工作流管理系统模型的研究

传统的工作流程管理系统通常以主从式架构为基础,在这个架构下当有众多的流程在执行时服务器会成为整个系统的性能瓶颈,服务器出现故障时所有的流程无法继续执行。为了解决这个问题,提出了基于工作流程状态信息的分散式执行模型,以流程状态信息作为流程的执行依据,利用流程状态信息和触发事件的概念来判断每一个流程活动的执行条件和状态,并采用令牌机制解决资源竞争的问题,在此架构下不需要任何的独立分配工作的机制,没有任何一部主机会成为系统性能的瓶颈。讨论了系统的架构设计、关键技术及系统实现,并以订货出货流程为例进行了验证,为复杂的工作流程提供了一种新的管理及控制模式。     

Caterpillar: A business process execution engine on the Ethereum blockchain

Blockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, allow a set of actors to maintain a ledger of transactions without relying on a central authority and to deploy programs, called smart contracts, that are executed whenever certain transactions occur. These features can be used as basic building blocks for executing collaborative business processes between mutually untrusting parties. However, implementing business processes using the low-level primitives provided by blockchain platforms is cumbersome and error-prone. In contrast, established business process management systems (BPMSs), such as those based on the standard Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), provide convenient abstractions for rapid development of process-oriented applications. This article demonstrates how to combine the advantages of a BPMS with those of a blockchain platform. The article introduces a blockchain-based BPMN execution engine, named Caterpillar. Like any BPMN execution engine, Caterpillar supports the creation of instances of a process model and allows users to monitor the state of process instances and to execute tasks thereof. The specificity of Caterpillar is that the state of each process instance is maintained on the (Ethereum) blockchain and the workflow routing is performed by smart contracts generated by a BPMN-to-Solidity compiler. The Caterpillar compiler supports a large array of BPMN constructs, including subprocesses, multiple-instance activities, and event handlers. The paper describes the architecture of Caterpillar and the interfaces it provides to support the monitoring of process instances, the allocation and execution of work items, and the execution of service tasks.     

Standards-based approaches to B2B workflow integration

E-business automates the overall activities of a company and allows distributed systems to communicate their information. Process automation and information sharing improve a company’s productivity and responsiveness, while Business-to-Business (B2B) workflow systems electronically aid the progress of business processes among trading partners, and also help companies to monitor and administrate their process execution. This study analyzes the technologies and standards for B2B workflow integration, and extracts a reference model for B2B workflow integration. Based on the reference model, three approaches to B2B workflow integration will be introduced here. In addition, we have developed a prototype system of one approach and have illustrated an example for B2B workflow integration. The result of our research can help business partners understand the workflow standards and the messaging technologies for B2B workflow integration, and also help them understand how to implement workflow integration systems that are appropriate to their e-business environments.     

分布式工作流执行服务的设计与实现

工作流执行服务的实现方案是实施工作流技术最为关键的一个方面,工作流管理系统的应用特点决定了它必须与各种分布的、异构的应用进行通信或与其集成。为了给用户提供透明的工作流执行服务而隐藏工作流执行服务实现的复杂性,文章提出了一种具有三层层次结构的工作流执行服务实现方案,其中的分布式通信服务层由通信中间件实现,使开发者无需关心程序间通信的复杂性,从而将精力放在解决业务问题和优化业务逻辑方面,提高了应用开发的效率。     

WIRES: A Methodology for Developing Workflow Applications

Workflow management systems are becoming a relevant support for a large class of business applications, and many workflow models as well as commercial products are currently available. While the large availability of tools facilitates the development and the fulfilment of customer requirements, workflow application development still requires methodological guidelines that drive the developers in the complex task of rapidly producing effective applications. In fact, it is necessary to identify and model the business processes, to design the interfaces towards existing cooperating systems, and to manage implementation aspects in an integrated way. This paper presents the WIRES methodology for developing workflow applications under a uniform modelling paradigm – UML modelling tools with some extensions – that covers all the life cycle of these applications: from conceptual analysis to implementation. High-level analysis is performed under different perspectives, including a business and an organisational perspective. Distribution, interoperability and cooperation with external information systems are considered in this early stage. A set of “workflowability” criteria is provided in order to identify which candidate processes are suited to be implemented as workflows. Non-functional requirements receive particular emphasis in that they are among the most important criteria for deciding whether workflow technology can be actually useful for implementing the business process at hand. The design phase tackles aspects of concurrency and cooperation, distributed transactions and exception handling. Reuse of component workflows, available in a repository as workflow fragments, is a distinguishing feature of the method. Implementation aspects are presented in terms of rules that guide in the selection of a commercial workflow management system suitable for supporting the designed processes, coupled with guidelines for mapping the designed workflows onto the model offered by the selected system.     

面向业务过程管理的Agent平台的设计及实现

业务过程管理能够支持企业业务流程优化运行,因而日益成为学术界和工业界研究和开发的重点.目前绝大多数的业务过程管理系统都是在传统的工作流管理系统基础上的扩展,因而具有适应性能力不强等缺点.介绍了一个面向业务过程管理的Agent平台,它包含了Agent的建模工具和运行环境.对该Agent的模型、相关工具和环境的实现方法进行了说明.该平台能够方便地支持面向业务过程管理的Agent的构造,并提供了求解业务问题的能力.     

Automatic control of workflow processes using ECA rules

Changes in recent business environments have created the necessity for a more efficient and effective business process management. The workflow management system is software that assists in defining business processes as well as automatically controlling the execution of the processes. We propose a new approach to the automatic execution of business processes using event-condition-action (ECA) rules that can be automatically triggered by an active database. First of all, we propose the concept of blocks that can classify process flows into several patterns. A block is a minimal unit that can specify the behaviors represented in a process model. An algorithm is developed to detect blocks from a process definition network and transform it into a hierarchical tree model. The behaviors in each block type are modeled using ACTA formalism. This provides a theoretical basis from which ECA rules are identified. The proposed ECA rule-based approach shows that it is possible to execute the workflow using the active capability of database without users' intervention. The operation of the proposed methods is illustrated through an example process.     

Adaptation in mobile workflow management systems

Workflow management systems (WFMS) are an emerging technology for supporting the coordinated execution of business processes by a group of users. One goal of introducing a WFMS into an enterprise is to integrate all personnel working on a business process into the system. This article describes a new approach to the integration of mobile users into a WFMS. This is of special interest because key personnel such as sales representatives and executives are often travelling and can only be integrated into the WFMS through mobile computing technologies. After introducing an architecture for mobile WFMS, we focus on the handling of one specific feature of mobile systems: the high diversity of environments in which mobile users operate. For handling this feature we have to implement adaptable software systems. In our approach, we start by introducing a formal model of mobile systems. This model offers a basis for the use of optimisation techniques to realise an adaptive mobile WFMS.     

WfMS:工作流管理系统

工作流管理系统的主要目标是通过合理地调用和配有关的信息及人力资源来协调业务过程中的各个活动,以促使业务目标的高效实现。在计算机和网络使用得越来越广泛的今天,工作流管理系统正在吸引起自研究机构及产业界越来越多的关流。本文对工作流管理系统的研究现状了了一个总结,详细介绍同工作流有关概念,分类,工作流管理联盟关于工作流管理系统的参考模型及以及当前的一些研究热点与发展趋势。