工作流系统时间管理

Overview on Managing Time in Workflow Systems

时间管理是工作流管理软件系统的关键部分,也是工作流技术实施复杂企业应用的严重局限.开展时间管理研究,对于增强工作流管理软件系统的柔性、确保工作流计划的高效执行和提高企业的竞争力具有重要意义.时间管理的关键在于时间信息的有效建模.首先介绍了工作流管理系统的时间问题.其次,综述了时间建模与分析的研究现状,包括时间约束的建模、时序一致性验证与时间违反的处理.最后,基于对现有研究方法的分析与评价,指出了工作流系统时间管理的发展方向.时间管理的支持对于开发灵活性和实用性的工作流管理系统具有重要的指导意义.

Time management is a crucial part of workflow management software systems, and is also a serious limitation in applying workflow technologies to complex enterprises. Doing researches for time modeling is important to enhance the flexibility of workflow management software systems, to guarantee workflow plan to be efficiently executed and to make enterprises more competitive. The key of time management lies in whether time information is effectively modeled. This paper first introduces the time issues in workflow systems, then surveys the actual status of time modeling and analysis, which involve how time constraints to be modeled and analyzed, how temporal consistency to be verified and time violations to be handled. Based on the evaluation of existing research methods, we indicate the developing trends of time management in workflow systems. Supporting for time management provides a good guidance for developing high flexible and practical workflow management systems.