Semantic Workflow Representation and Samples

Doctoral Consortium, 2004

Workflow management systems received considerable attention lately, motivated by their wide spectrum of applications. Requirements for workflow management systems comprise a long list, among which one may highlight distributed execution, cooperation and coordination, and synchronization, that model the way user communities work cooperatively to perform a given task. This doctoral dissertation addresses a complementary family of requirements, collectively called flexible execution. Briefly, workflow management systems usually interpret a workflow definition rigidly. However, there are real life situations where users should be allowed to deviate from the prescribed sequence of actions for various reasons, including the unavailability of required resources. To cope with situations such as this, mechanisms to flexibilize workflow execution are proposed, that allow execution to proceed in the presence of incomplete information, by adopting presuppositions, and in the presence of negative information, by suggesting execution alternatives. An implementation of the mechanisms, that extends known Web service frameworks, is also outlined.

Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2010

PurposeThe increase in business process management projects in the past decade has seen an increase in demand for business process modelling (BPM) techniques. A rapidly growing aspect of BPM is the use of workflow management systems to automate routine and sequential processes. Workflows tend to move away from traditional definitions of business processes that can often be forced to fit a model that does not suit its nature. Existing process modelling tools tend to be biased to either the informational, behavioural or object‐oriented aspect of the workflow. Because of this, models can often miss important aspects of a workflow. As well as managing the relationship between the types of model it is important to consider who will be using it, as process models are useful in various ways. The paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports on a case study in a manufacturing company, where users were surveyed to see which are the notations that are most c...

1998

Abstract Workflow management systems (WFMS) support the modeling and coordinated execution of processes within an organization. To coordinate the execution of the various activities (or tasks) in a workflow, task dependencies are specified among them. Often, the workflow application domains are such that the workflow is a long-running activity and the various tasks that constitute the workflow need to be executed by systems that are distributed and autonomous in nature, possibly owned by different organizations.

Conceptual Modeling — ER 2001, 2001

Workflow technology is currently being deployed in quite diverse domains. However, the element of change is present in some degree and form in almost all domains. A workflow implementation that does not support the process of change will not benefit the organization in the long run. Change can be manifested in different forms in workflow processes. In this paper, we first present a categorization of workflow change characteristics and divide workflow processes into dynamic, adaptive and flexible processes. We define flexibility as the ability of the workflow process to execute on the basis of a loosely, or partially specified model, where the full specification of the model is made at runtime, and may be unique to each instance. To provide a modeling framework that offers true flexibility, we need to consider the factors, which influence the paths of (unique) instances together with the process definition. We advocate an approach that aims at making the process of change part of the workflow process itself. We introduce the notion of an open instance that consists of a core process and several pockets of flexibility, and present a framework based on this notion, which makes use of special build activities that provide the functionality to integrate the process of defining a change, into the open workflow instance.

Lectures on Concurrency and Petri Nets, 2004

Over the last decade there has been a shift from "data-aware" information systems to "process-aware" information systems. To support business processes an enterprise information system needs to be aware of these processes and their organizational context. Business Process Management (BPM) includes methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of such operational business processes. BPM can be considered as an extension of classical Workflow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. This tutorial introduces models, systems, and standards for the design, analysis, and enactment of workflow processes. Petri nets are used for the modeling and analysis of workflows. Using Petri nets as a formal basis, contemporary systems, languages, and standards for BPM and WFM are discussed. Although it is clear that Petri nets can serve as a solid foundation for BPM/WFM technology, in reality systems, languages, and standards are developed in an ad-hoc fashion. To illustrate this XPDL, the "Lingua Franca" proposed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), is analyzed using a set of 20 basic workflow patterns. This analysis exposes some of the typical semantic problems restricting the application of BPM/WFM technology.

The Learnable Task Modeling Language (LTML) was developed by combining features of OWL, OWL-S, and PDDL, using a more compact and readable syntax than OWL/RDF to create human readable representations of web service procedures and hierarchical task models. Our goal was in part to develop a more robust and developer-friendly language based on the principles and design that led to OWL-S and demonstrate that such a language also provided the basis for developing tools that could learn web service procedures by demonstration. LTML's initial and driving use is as an interlingua for the learning and procedure execution components of POIROT, a system that learns web service workflow procedures from 'observations' of one or a small number of semantic web service traces. The LTML language uses an s-expression based syntax for improved readability but has parsers and generators that translate the surface forms into RDF for storage in a SESAME triple store implementing POIROT's internal blackboard. All language elements are grounded in a set of OWL ontologies. The language encompasses and extends coverage of the OWL-S process and grounding models, and introduces elements to support sets of hierarchical task methods indexed by goals, semantic execution traces, and internal tasks and learning goals. This short paper gives an overview of LTML and describes the areas where LTML diverges from or extends OWL-S and PDDL.

Advances in Database Technology …, 1996

Abstract. A workflow consists of a collection of activities which support a specific business process; classical examples range from claim manage-ment in an insurance company to production scheduling in a manufactur-ing company to patient care management and support within ...

14th Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing (PDP'06), 2006

The different approaches of emerging workflow modeling languages are manifold. Today, there exist many notations for workflow modeling with various specializations on different domains. In this paper we analyze three well known business process (workflow) modeling notations for their support for elaborated key aspects in workflow modeling. The aim of this paper is to discuss their differences and commonalities concerning these aspects.

OOER'95: Object-Oriented and Entity …, 1995

Abstract. Workflow management is emerging as a challenging area for databases, stressing database technology beyond its current capabilities. Workflow management systems need to be more integrated with data management technology, in particular as it concerns the ...

Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 2003

Database and Expert Systems Applications. 8th International Conference, DEXA '97. Proceedings, 1997

1) Istituto di Studi sulla Ricerca e Documentazione Scientifica - CNR, Via Cesare de Lollis 12, 00185 Roma 2) Dip. Informatica e Sistemistica-Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Via Salaria 113, Roma ... Keywords: Workflow, Co-operative work, Conceptual model

International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems, 2003

This paper presents a new formalism for workflow process definition, which combines research in programming languages and in database systems. This formalism is based on creating a library of workflow building blocks, which can be progressively combined and nested to construct complex workflows. Workflows are specified declaratively, using a simple high level language, which allows the dynamic definition of exception handling and events, as well as dynamically overriding workflow definition. This ensures a high degree of flexibility in data and control flow specification, as well as in reuse of workflow specifications to construct other workflows. The resulting workflow execution environment is well suited to supporting cooperative work.

While the specification languages of workflow management systems focus on process execution semantics, the successful development of workflows relies on a fuller conceptualisation of business processing, including process semantics. Traditionally, the success of conceptual modelling techniques has depended largely on the adequacy of certain requirements: conceptualisation (following the Conceptualisation Principle), expressive power (following the One Hundred Principle), comprehensibility and formal foundation. An equally important requirement, particularly with the increased conceptualisation of business aspects, is business suitability. In this paper, the focus is on the suitability of workflow modelling for a commonly encountered class of (opera-tional) business processing, e.g. those of insurance claims, bank loans and land conveyancing. Based on a previously conducted assessment of a number of integrated techniques, the results of which are summarised in this paper, five business suitability principles are proposed: organisational embedding, scenario validation, service information hiding, cognitive sufficiency and execution resilience. As a result, a further insight into workflow specifications and workflow deployment in open distributed architectures is claimed.

Workflow applications automate business processes. A common approach to the development of workflow applications usually consists of the description of the desired functionality directly followed by workflow implementation. This approach has the disadvantage that it considers mainly implementation issues and the developed application is no way related to the business process it automates. In this paper we claim that a systematic approach to workflow application development should start from the definition and understanding of the corresponding business process before proceeding to the specification and implementation of workflow applications. Along these lines, we present our experience and efforts to describe and analyze a real world business process and to design and implement corresponding workflows in a systematic way by using the formal Modified Petri Net (MPN) model for business process modeling and the commercial product FlowMark for workflow development. The advantages of this approach is also discussed.

First International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing (e-Science'05)

Semantic Grid is becoming a key enabler for next generation Grid and the need of supporting process description and enactment, by means of composition of multiple resources, emerged as one of the fundamental requirements. Within NextGRID 1 project, the idea of adopting business processes (expressed as workflow policies) as architectural components in a next generation Grid has been developed with the aim of providing architecture with dynamic behaviour and interoperability. The need of a semantic workflow representation language then emerged and was developed defining an OWLS extension able to support workflow description. The resulting OWL-WS (OWL for Workflow and Services) ontology allows us modelling concept like abstract and concrete services and workflows according to a Semantic Workflow Model also enabling specification of higher-order workflows and semantic service grouping. This language is being used for specifying adaptive business processes (policy) that are used as evaluation and binding mechanisms by a Workflow Enactment Engine.