Essential Principles for Workflow Modelling Effectiveness

By incorporating aspects of coordination and collaboration, workflow implementations of information systems require a sound conceptualisation of business processing semantics. Traditionally , the success of conceptual modelling techniques has depended largely on the adequacy of conceptualisation, expressive power, 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 business suitability of workflow modelling for a commonly encountered class of (operational) business processing, e.g. those of insurance claims, bank loans and land conveyancing. A general assessment is first conducted on some integrated techniques characterising well-known paradigms-structured process modelling, object-oriented modelling, behavioural process modelling and business-oriented modelling. Through this, an insight into business suitability within the broader perspective of technique adequacy, is gained. A specific business suitability diagnosis then follows using a particular characterisation of business processing, i.e. one where the intuitive semantics and interrelationship of business services and business processes are nuanced. As a result, five business suitability principles are elicited. These are proposed for a more detailed understanding and (synthetic) development of workflow modelling techniques. Accordingly , further insight into workflow specification languages and workflow globalisation in open distributed architectures may also be gained.

2004

Abstract. The maturity of infrastructures that support e-services allows organizations to incorporate Web services as part of their business processes. One prominent solution to manage, coordinate, and orchestrate Web services is the use of workflow technology. While workflow management systems architectures, language specifications, and workflow analysis techniques have been extensively studied there is a lack of tools and methods to assist process development.

This paper presents a methodology to bridge the gap between business process modeling and workflow specification. While the first is concerned with intuitive descriptions that are mainly used for communication, the second is concerned with configuring a process-aware information system, thus requiring a more rigorous language less suitable for communication. Unlike existing approaches the gap is not bridged by providing formal semantics for an informal language. Instead it is assumed that the desired behavior is just a subset of the full behavior obtained using a liberal interpretation of the informal business process modeling language. Using a new correctness criterion (relaxed soundness), it is verified whether a selection of suitable behavior is possible. The methodology consists of five steps and is illustrated using event-driven process chains as a business process modeling language and Petri nets as the workflow specification language.

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. For this, a wellspring of modelling techniques, paradigms and informal-formal method extensions which address the analysis of organisational processing structures (enterprise modelling) and communication (based on speech-act theory), is available. However, the characterisations-indeed the cognition-of workflows still appears coarse. In this paper, we provide the complementary, empirical insight of a real-scale business transaction workflow. The development of the workflow model follows a set of principles which we believe address workflow modelling suitability. Through the principles, advanced considerations including asynchronous as well as synchronous messaging, temporal constraints and a service-oriented perspective are motivated. By illustrating the suitability principles and with it the inherent complexity of business transaction domains, we offer timely insights into workflow specification extension, and workflow reuse and deployment.

Journal of Software Engineering and Applications

Workflow-based systems are typically said to lead to better use of staff and better management and productivity. The first phase in building a workflow-based system is capturing the real-world process in a conceptual representation suit-able for the following phases of formalization and implementation. The specification may be in text or diagram form or written in a formal language. This paper proposes a flow-based diagrammatic methodology as a tool for workflow specification. The expressiveness of the method is appraised though its ability to capture a workflow-based application. Here we show that the proposed conceptual diagrams are able to express situations arising in practice as an alternative to tools currently used in workflow systems. This is demonstrated by using the proposed methodology to partial build demo systems for two government agencies.

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 ...

International Journal of Information Management, 2001

E!ective business process management necessitates a consistent information #ow between the participants in the process, the smooth integration of the #ow of work, the timely sharing of data and information during the planning and implementation phases and harmonious support for the collaborative aspects of work. The recent trends in the development of advanced work#ow management systems and technologies seem to be of crucial importance for facilitating these tasks within the process management context. However, work#ow management systems (WfMS) follow various approaches in modelling the #ow of work and hence present varying functionalities when supporting enterprise processes. The present paper examines the ways in which work#ow technology may facilitate the implementation of process management, reviews the pros and cons of adopting alternative work#ow representation techniques in modelling business processes and provides guidance to managers as to the characteristics, the similarities and di!erences of the various work#ow modelling schemes.

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.

2008

Modeling processes and workflow for complex systems constitutes a challenge for designers. The resources that are used in systems are in limited amounts and these must be shared between the processes and workflow instances activities. Our considerations refer to the need of a data base in that the workflow constituents: instances and activities must be represented in a data base and also their time evolution. Concerning the resources that are used in the processes and in the workflow instances execution must be adequately represented. Two important classes of information systems, Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, have been used to support e-business process redesign, integration, and management. We intend to propose a model for resource representation and allocation and as conclusion propose considerations concerning the design of processes, workflows and workflow management systems. This paper is partially supported by the project P...

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.