In: Mong Li Lee, Kian Lee Tan, Vilas Wuwongse (Eds.): Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3882: Database Systems for Advanced Applications: 11th International Conference, DASFAA 2006, Singapore, April 12-15, 2006., pages 617-627. Springer-Verlag, January 2006. URL: http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/1173383643,.
Abstract: Workflow management is a fast evolving technology which can support business process reengineering and realize the full or partial automatic process of a business. A formal model of workflow should contain at least four major dimensions: the process, resource, case and time dimensions. Although much research has been devoted to this subject, to the best of our knowledge, no existing research is able to model workflow with the four dimensions at the same time. In this paper, a formal model, named as WF-RAPN (A Resource Assignment Petri Net for Workflow Management) is shown. The model extends traditional Petri Nets with resource assignments and case handling. To guarantee that resources are correctly consumed and execution time of each case is soundly calculated in the modeled processes, a formal set of WF-RAPN composition rules are designed and the proof of the correctness is also shown in the paper.