Nowadays an increasing number of workflow products and research prototypes begin to adopt XML for representing workflow models owing to its easy use and well understanding for people and machines. However, most of wor...Nowadays an increasing number of workflow products and research prototypes begin to adopt XML for representing workflow models owing to its easy use and well understanding for people and machines. However, most of workflow products and research prototypes provide the few supports for the verification of XML-based workflow model, such as free-deadlock properties, which is essential to successful application of workflow technology. In this paper, we tackle this problem by mapping the XML-based workflow model into Petri-net, a kind of well-known formalism for modeling, analyzing and verifying system. As a result, the XML-based workflow model can be automatically verified with the help of general Petri-net tools, such as DANAMICS. The presented approach not only enables end users to represent workflow model with XML-based modeling language, but also the correctness of model can be ensured, thus satisfying the needs of business processes.展开更多
A workflow schema is an abstract description of the business processed by workflow model, and plays a critical role in analyzing, executing and reorganizing business processes. The verification issue on the correctnes...A workflow schema is an abstract description of the business processed by workflow model, and plays a critical role in analyzing, executing and reorganizing business processes. The verification issue on the correctness of complicated workflow schemas is difficult in the field of workflow. We make an intensive study of it in this paper. We present here local errors and schema logic errors （global errors） in workflow schemas in detail, and offer some constraint rules trying to avoid schema errors during modeling. In addition, we propose a verification approach based on graph reduction and graph spread, and give the algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in a workflow prototype system e-ScopeWork.展开更多
Workflow management aims at the controlling, monitoring, optimizing and supporting of business processes. Well designed formal models will facilitate such management since they provide explicit representations of busi...Workflow management aims at the controlling, monitoring, optimizing and supporting of business processes. Well designed formal models will facilitate such management since they provide explicit representations of business processes as the basis for computerized analysis, verification and execution. Petri Nets have been recognized as the most suitable candidate for workflow modeling, and as such, formal models based on Petri Nets have been proposed, among them WF-net by Aalst is the most popular one. But WF-net has turned out to be conceptually chaotic as will be illustrated in this paper with an example from Aalst＇s book. This paper proposes a series of models for the description and analysis of business processes at conceptually different hierarchical layers. Analytic goals and methods at these layers are also discussed. The underlying structure, shared by all these models, is SYNCHRONIZER, which is designed with the guidance of synchrony theory of GNT （General Net Theory） and serves as the conceptual foundation of workflow formal models. Structurally, synchronizers connect tasks to form a whole while dynamically synchronizers control tasks to achieve synchronization.展开更多
文摘Nowadays an increasing number of workflow products and research prototypes begin to adopt XML for representing workflow models owing to its easy use and well understanding for people and machines. However, most of workflow products and research prototypes provide the few supports for the verification of XML-based workflow model, such as free-deadlock properties, which is essential to successful application of workflow technology. In this paper, we tackle this problem by mapping the XML-based workflow model into Petri-net, a kind of well-known formalism for modeling, analyzing and verifying system. As a result, the XML-based workflow model can be automatically verified with the help of general Petri-net tools, such as DANAMICS. The presented approach not only enables end users to represent workflow model with XML-based modeling language, but also the correctness of model can be ensured, thus satisfying the needs of business processes.
基金Supported by the National High-Technology Re-search and Development Program ( 2002AA1Z2308 , 2002AA118030)Liaoning Province Natural Science Foundation of China(20022027)
文摘A workflow schema is an abstract description of the business processed by workflow model, and plays a critical role in analyzing, executing and reorganizing business processes. The verification issue on the correctness of complicated workflow schemas is difficult in the field of workflow. We make an intensive study of it in this paper. We present here local errors and schema logic errors （global errors） in workflow schemas in detail, and offer some constraint rules trying to avoid schema errors during modeling. In addition, we propose a verification approach based on graph reduction and graph spread, and give the algorithm. The algorithm is implemented in a workflow prototype system e-ScopeWork.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China nnder Grant No.60473058the National Grand Fundamental Research 973 Program of China under Graut Nos.2002CB312004,2002CB312006.
文摘Workflow management aims at the controlling, monitoring, optimizing and supporting of business processes. Well designed formal models will facilitate such management since they provide explicit representations of business processes as the basis for computerized analysis, verification and execution. Petri Nets have been recognized as the most suitable candidate for workflow modeling, and as such, formal models based on Petri Nets have been proposed, among them WF-net by Aalst is the most popular one. But WF-net has turned out to be conceptually chaotic as will be illustrated in this paper with an example from Aalst＇s book. This paper proposes a series of models for the description and analysis of business processes at conceptually different hierarchical layers. Analytic goals and methods at these layers are also discussed. The underlying structure, shared by all these models, is SYNCHRONIZER, which is designed with the guidance of synchrony theory of GNT （General Net Theory） and serves as the conceptual foundation of workflow formal models. Structurally, synchronizers connect tasks to form a whole while dynamically synchronizers control tasks to achieve synchronization.
