Knowledge-based techniques to increase the flexibility of workflow management

Abstract

This paper describes how knowledge-based techniques can be used to overcome problems of workflow management in engineering applications. Using explicit process and product models as a basis for a workflow interpreter allows to alternate planning and execution steps, resulting in an increased flexibility of project coordination and enactment. To gain the full advantages of this flexibility, change processes have to be supported by the system. These require an improved traceability of decisions and have to be based on dependency management and change notification mechanisms. Our methods and techniques are illustrated by two applications: Urban land-use planning and software process modeling.1.

Process Knowledge Discovery in Social BPM

“…The type of goals mentioned here are process goals which are set by the different process areas of an organization and upon completion; their status is changed to 'satisfied'. These goals may well have dependencies and other sub-goals which need to be achieved first before the main goal can be satisfied [29], all of these are modelled in goal-based business process approach.…”

“…The goals which are set by the organization are left to the specific user(s) to decide how they would like to achieve them [1] [24]. In other words goal-based modelling allows the capturing of the 'what' without specifying the 'how' as [28] puts it.…”

Business Process Modelling and Enactment for Task-Specific Information Support

“…The idea of weak workflow structures is required, since normally, legal regulations only provide a process skeleton while specific knowledge-intensive tasks [Buckingham (1998)] are below the granularity normally modelled [Dellen et al (1997)] -this is what Lenk and Traunmüller see as a specific characteristic of egovernment processes: "They are partly … structured by legal rules which how-ever, often demand interpretation …" [Lenk and Traunmüller (2000)]; or because during long-living administrative process instances rules may change [Dellen et al (1997)]; or because specific exceptions may occur once for the first time.…”

Untitled

“…The issue of flexible workflow management has been addressed in Casati et al (1998), Reichert and Dadam (1998), Dellen et al (1997), and Bogia and Kaplan (1995). Casati et al (1998) suggested a set of primitives that allow modifications of workflow schema, and introduced a taxonomy of policies to manage the evolution of running instances when the corresponding workflow schema is modified.…”

“…Some WFMSs are flexible (Reichert and Dadam, 1998;Casati et al, 1998;Dellen et al, 1997) in the sense that they provide adaptability for the changes on routing constructs such as adding or deleting tasks, or changing task sequences. These systems, however, do not provide capability to handle changes on the organizational structure and business rules.…”