An Evaluation of Inter-Organizational Workflow Modelling Formalisms

This paper evaluates the dynamic aspects of the UML in the context of inter-organizational workflows. Two evaluation methodologies are used. The first one is ontological and is based on the BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber) models. The second validation is based on prototyping and consists in the development of a workflow management system in the aerospace industry. Both convergent and divergent results are found from the two validations. Possible enhancements to the UML formalism are suggested from the convergent results. On the other hand, the divergent results suggest the need for a contextual specification in the BWW models. Ce travail consiste en une évaluation des aspects dynamiques du language UML dans un contexte de workflow inter-organisationnel. Le choix du language par rapport à d'autres est motivé par sa richesse grammaticale lui offrant une très bonne adaptation à ce contexte. L'évaluation se fait par une validation ontologique basée sur les modèles BWW (Bunge-Wand-Weber) et par la réalisation d'un prototype de système de gestion de workflows inter-organisationnels. À partir des résultats convergents obtenus des deux différentes analyses, des améliorations au formalisme UML sont suggérées. D'un autre coté, les analyses divergentes suggèrent une possibilité de spécifier les modèles BWW à des contextes plus particuliers tels que ceux des workflows et permettent également de suggérer d'autres améliorations possibles au langage.Ontology, Conceptual study, Prototype Validation, UML, IS development methods and tools., Ontologie, étude conceptuelle, validation du prototype, UML, méthodes et outils de développement IS

A Three-Level Process Framework for Contract-Based Dynamic Service Outsourcing

Service outsourcing is the business paradigm, in which an organization has part of its business process performed by a service provider. In dynamic markets, service providers are selected on the fly during process enactment. The cooperation between the parties is\ud specified in a dynamically made electronic contract. This contract includes a process specification that is tailored towards service matchmaking and crossorganizational process enactment and hence has to conform to specific market and specification standards. Process enactment, however, relies on intraorganizational process specifications that have to comply with the infrastructure available in an organization. In this position paper, we present a three-level process specification framework for dynamic contract-based\ud service outsourcing. This framework relates the two process specification levels through a third, conceptual level. This approached is inspired by the well-known ANSI-SPARC model for data management. We show how the framework can be placed in the context of infrastructures for cross-organizational process support

A language for information commerce processes

Automatizing information commerce requires languages to represent the typical information commerce processes. Existing languages and standards cover either only very specific types of business models or are too general to capture in a concise way the specific properties of information commerce processes. We introduce a language that is specifically designed for information commerce. It can be directly used for the implementation of the processes and communication required in information commerce. It allows to cover existing business models that are known either from standard proposals or existing information commerce applications on the Internet. The language has a concise logical semantics. In this paper we present the language concepts and an implementation architecture

Enhancing the Supply Chain Performance by Integrating Simulated and Physical Agents into Organizational Information Systems

As the business environment gets more complicated, organizations must be able to respond to the business changes and adjust themselves quickly to gain their competitive advantages. This study proposes an integrated agent system, called SPA, which coordinates simulated and physical agents to provide an efficient way for organizations to meet the challenges in managing supply chains. In the integrated framework, physical agents coordinate with inter-organizations\' physical agents to form workable business processes and detect the variations occurring in the outside world, whereas simulated agents model and analyze the what-if scenarios to support physical agents in making decisions. This study uses a supply chain that produces digital still cameras as an example to demonstrate how the SPA works. In this example, individual information systems of the involved companies equip with the SPA and the entire supply chain is modeled as a hierarchical object oriented Petri nets. The SPA here applies the modified AGNES data clustering technique and the moving average approach to help each firm generalize customers\' past demand patterns and forecast their future demands. The amplitude of forecasting errors caused by bullwhip effects is used as a metric to evaluate the degree that the SPA affects the supply chain performance. The experimental results show that the SPA benefits the entire supply chain by reducing the bullwhip effects and forecasting errors in a dynamic environment.Supply Chain Performance Enhancement; Bullwhip Effects; Simulated Agents; Physical Agents; Dynamic Customer Demand Pattern Discovery

Developing Web Services Using Workflow Model: An Inter-organizational Perspective

This paper discusses how a workflow model can be used in the design and development of web services composition. We particularly investigate the development of web services composition in an inter-organizational workflow environment. We discuss respectively how to design an inter-organizational workflow from scratch when there is no existing internal workflow, and how to make existing internal workflows work together in an inter-organizational workflow environment

The Challenges of Inter-Organizational Business Process Design - A Research Agenda

Given the increasing importance of value chain collaboration, business processes need to be more closely aligned across organizational boundaries. Hence, business process modeling and design have to be enhanced and extended to cope with inter-organizational business relationships. Among the challenges that arise are interdependencies between internal and external processes, different process logic and terminology, missing clarification of responsibilities and confidentiality issues. This paper analyzes existing approaches to business process modeling, workflow management and B2B standardization with regard to the specific requirements concerning inter-organizational business process design. It extracts the relevant concepts addressing these requirements and draws up an agenda for further research

Software Agent Architecture for Managing Inter-Organizational Collaborations

The growing importance of cooperation among organizations, as a result of globalization, current market opportunities and technological advances, encourages organizations to dynamically establish inter-organizational collaborations. These collaborations are carried out by executing collaborative business processes among the organizations. In this work we propose an agent-based software architecture for managing inter-organizational collaborations. Two types of agents are provided: the Collaboration Administrator Agent and the Process Administrator Agent. The former allows organizations setting up collaborations. The latter allows organizations executing collaborative business processes. A Colored Petri Net model specifying the role, which an organization fulfills in a collaborative process, is used to carry out the behavior of the Process Administrator Agent that represents the organization. Planning and execution of the actions of the Process Administrator Agents are driven by a Colored Petri Net machine embedded to them. Thus, Process Administrator Agents do not require to have defined at design-time the protocols they can support. In addition, we propose a model-driven development method for generating Colored Petri Net models from a collaborative process model defined as interaction protocol. Finally, an implementation of the agent-based software architecture and methods based on model-driven development are presented.La creciente importancia de la cooperación entre las organizaciones, como consecuencia de la globalización, las oportunidades actuales de mercado y los avances tecnológicos, alienta a las organizaciones a establecer en forma dinámica colaboraciones inter-organizacionales. Estas colaboraciones se llevan a cabo mediante la ejecución de procesos de negocio colaborativos entre las organizaciones. En este trabajo de investigación se propone una arquitectura basada en agentes de software para la gestión de colaboraciones inter-organizacionales. La arquitectura provee dos tipos de agentes: el Agente Administrador de Colaboraciones y el Agente Administrador de Proceso. El primer agente permite a las organizaciones a establecer colaboraciones. El segundo agente habilita a las organizaciones ejecutar procesos de negocio colaborativos. El rol que una organización desempeña en un proceso colaborativo es especificado mediante un modelo de redes de Petri coloreadas. Este modelo es usado para dirigir el comportamiento del Agente Administrador de Proceso, el cual representa a una organización. La ejecución de los planes y las acciones del Agente Administrador de Proceso son dirigidas mediante una máquina de redes de Petri coloreadas embebida en el agente. Entonces, los Agentes Administrador de Proceso no requieren tener definido en tiempo de diseño los protocolos que dan soporte a su comportamiento. Adicionalmente, se propone un método basado en el desarrollo dirigido por modelos para la generación en forma automática de modelos de redes de Petri coloreadas a partir de un modelo de procesos de negocio colaborativo definido como protocolo de interacción. Finalmente, la implementación de la arquitectura y los métodos basados en el desarrollo dirigido por modelos son presentados.Fil: Tello Leal, Edgar. Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas; MéxicoFil: Chiotti, Omar Juan Alfredo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño (i); ArgentinaFil: Villarreal, Pablo David. Universidad Tecnologica Nacional. Facultad Regional Santa Fe. Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo de Ingenieria En Sistemas de Informacion; Argentin

OperA/ALIVE/OperettA

Comprehensive models for organizations must, on the one hand, be able to specify global goals and requirements but, on the other hand, cannot assume that particular actors will always act according to the needs and expectations of the system design. Concepts as organizational rules (Zambonelli 2002), norms and institutions (Dignum and Dignum 2001; Esteva et al. 2002), and social structures (Parunak and Odell 2002) arise from the idea that the effective engineering of organizations needs high-level, actor-independent concepts and abstractions that explicitly define the organization in which agents live (Zambonelli 2002).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft