KWM: Knowledge-based Workflow Model for agile organization

The workflow management system (WFMS) in an agile organization should be highly adaptable to the frequent organizational changes. To increase the adaptability of contemporary WFMSs, a mechanism for managing changes within the organizational structure and changes in business rules needs to be reinforced. In this paper, a knowledge-based approach for workflow modeling is proposed, in which a workflow is defined as a set of business rules. Knowledge on the organizational structure and special workflow, such as role/actor mappings and complex routing rules, can be explicitly modeled in KWM (Knowledge-based Workflow Model). Using knowledge representation scheme and dependency management facility, a change propagation mechanism is provided to adapt to the frequent changes in the organizational structure, business rules, and procedures

Dynamic management for business processes modeling & execution in workflows

Contemporary workflow-management systems cannot represent change or evolution of business processes. When a change is needed due to external reason, an offline procedure is invoked in order to create a new workflow engine template for the future instances in the workflow enactment module. The standard interfaces do not deal with the business process metadata in a way that can actually change it as a reaction to inbound knowledge. There are many relevant cases, especially in the virtual enterprise arena, where the business process is not deterministic and is influenced by external parameters (such as the selection of virtual partners), so the knowledge of what should be done is available, however it is external to the system. There is a need to develop a modeling mechanism that enables to transfer process definitions in an automatic way, without the need for human interference. One way of confronting with these issues is the use of a rule-based engine to monitor business process execution. This engine will contain internal meta-rules that refer to metadata entities, i.e. rules that describe how to act on other rules (business process routing) when a change is detected, while executing all needed consistency checks

An Efficient Workflow Management Scheme with Explicit Business Rules

In this paper, we have identified and classified various workflow operational rules. There are many business rules involved in the operation of workflow systems within the enterprise business environments. The rules are defined as ECA (Event-Condition- Action) rules and integrated with workflow systems with the active DB technology. Operational rules are categorized into task dispatching rules, dynamic process adaptation rules, exception handling rules, event-based monitoring rules, and external domain business rules. By adopting rule-based approach, the modification of business rules for process management can be easier. With the explicit management of business rules, the reasoning process of organizations can be formalized and managed transparently, which enables rapid and clear decision-making

Designing active objects in DEGAS

This report discusses application design for active databases, in particular for the active object-based database programming language DEGAS. In DEGAS one modularisation principle, the object, is applied to all elements of the application, including rules. We discuss a design process consisting of four phases, corresponding with the four kinds of capabilities in a DEGAS object, attributes, methods, rules, lifecycles. The elements of this design process are similar to those found in a design methodology such as OMT. To illustrate the design process we use the example of workflow management. In addition, it shows that the application of one modularisation to all elements of an active database leads to a clear modularisation of the workflow application, Furthermore, this modularisation facilitates all important workflow evolutions

Specifying and Executing User Agents in an Environment of Reasoning and RESTful Systems Using the Guard-Stage-Milestone Approach

For Read-Write Linked Data, an environment of reasoning and RESTful interaction, we investigate the use of the Guard-Stage-Milestone approach for specifying and executing user agents. We present an ontology to specify user agents. Moreover, we give operational semantics to the ontology in a rule language that allows for executing user agents on Read-Write Linked Data. We evaluate our approach formally and regarding performance. Our work shows that despite different assumptions of this environment in contrast to the traditional environment of workflow management systems, the Guard-Stage-Milestone approach can be transferred and successfully applied on the web of Read-Write Linked Data

Knowledge based approach to flexible workflow management systems

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).Today's business environments are characterized by dynamic and uncertain environments. In order to effectively support business processes in such contexts, workflow management systems must be able to adapt themselves effectively. In this dissertation, the workflow is redefined in concept and represented with a set of business rules. Business rules play a central role in organizational workflows in context of cooperation among actors. To achieve business goals, they constrain the flow of works, use of resources, and responsibility mapping between tasks and actors using role concept. Business rules are explicitly modeled in the Knowledge-based Workflow Model (KWM) using frames. To increase the adaptability of workflow management system, KWM has several distinctive features. First, it increases expressiveness of workflow model so that exception handling rules and responsibility mapping rules between tasks and actors as well as task scheduling rules are explicitly modeled. Secondly, formal definition of KWM enables one to define and to analyze correctness of workflow schema. Knowledge-based approach enables more powerful analysis on workflow schema including checking consistency and compactness of routing rules as well as terminality of a workflow. Thirdly, providing change propagation mechanism which assures correctness of workflow after the modification of workflow schema increases adaptability. Change propagation rules for the modification primitives are provided to manage workflow evolution. On the other hand, metarules that control rules in KWM are used to handle exceptions that occur in a running workflow instance. Workflow participants can easily change workflow schema of a workflow instance with the support of extra rules and a metarule. Based on KWM, K-WFMS (Knowledge-based WorkFlow Management System) has been implemented in client/server architecture. Inference shell of knowledge-based systems is employed for enactment of business rules and integrated with database systems. From a real application based on the KWM architecture, it has been shown that system performance can increase notably by reducing the number of rules and facts that are used in the course of workflow enactment

Sistemas de workflow : analise da area e proposta de modelo

Orientador: Jacques WainerDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matematica, Estatistica e Ciencia da ComputaçãoResumo: A presente dissertação enfoca os sistemas de workflow, que se inserem no contexto mais abrangente de software de suporte ao trabalho colaborativo. Sistemas de workflow podem ser definidos como sistemas cujo objetivo é "auxiliar as organizações na especificação, execução, monitoramento e coordenação do fluxo de trabalho em um ambiente de escritório distribuído" [Bul92]. Identificamos, através de análise da literatura da área, fatores estruturais em jogo em sistemas deste tipo, e demonstramos que as abordagens adotadas atualmente cobrem apenas parcialmente o espectro de possibilidades. Identificamos ainda omissões semânticas dos modelos ou especificações. O modelo conceitual que propomos procura tanto ampliar o poder semântico disponível nas direções apontadas pela análise, quanto corrigir os problemas estruturais detectados. Em especial, são atacados os seguintes problemas: . Propomos a ampliação do poder semântico através da oferta de um conjunto abrangente de ações básicas e elementos de sincronismo que englobam o tratamento de eventos assíncronos, atividades batch e atividades replicadas; . Apresentamos os fundamentos para um ambiente de execução fortemente orientado a dados, em que tanto objetos de sistema (como especificações de processo, p.ex.) quanto objetos de aplicação são tratados de maneira uniforme; . Tratamos o problema da alocação de executores de forma mais abrangente, permitindo a existência de atividades coletivas e o uso de estratégias de alocação diferenciadas, como balanceamento de carga de trabalho, round-robin e assim por diante. . Discutimos também os requisitos adicionais de comunicação introduzidos pela existência de atividades coletivas, cujo objetivo é o de manter a sinergia entre os participantes de cada atividade (a difusão de awareness).Abstract: A special category of collaborative systems, the Workflow Systems, are discussed. Such systems can be defined as "systems that help organizations to specify, execute, monitor, and coordinate the flow of work items within a distributed office environment" [Bul92]. We identify basic structural and semantic issues in such systems, and show that improvements can be made over current systems by offering a better coverage of both aspects. We then propose a new conceptual model that tries to fill the detected gaps both by providing a stronger, more expressive specification language and a more comprehensive execution environment. In particular, the following issues are covered: Basic actions and synchronization elements are proposed for asynchronous events, batch and replicated activities. We propose a strongly data-oriented execution environment, where both application and system objects (such as specifications) area treated in a uniform way. We present a broader solution to the agent scheduling problem, that allows one to use different allocation strategies, such as load-balancing, round robin and so on, and that lets many agents to be associated to collective activities. Collective activities give rise to special communication needs, that are treated in the broader awareness diffusion context.MestradoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã