In: Michael Wayne Barley, Nik Kasabov (Eds.): Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3371: Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: 7th Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents, PRIMA 2004, Auckland, New Zealand, August 8-13, 2004, pages 193-205. Springer-Verlag, 2005.
Abstract: This paper describes the architecture of a distributed workflow management system in a dynamic environment. The system features autonomous agent components that can adapt to both structural changes in business processes and changes in system parameters, such as the number of available resources. This adaptation could be a permanent adjustment that should be reflected in all the incoming work cases, or be associated with a particular instance of a work case. In addition, parts of the system can be modified by observing the behaviour of the system for possible shortcomings due to a non-optimal distribution of resources or faulty inter-process dependencies which could result in bottlenecks. Because of the autonomous nature of subsystem components, the workflow system can adapt to changes without the necessity of centralized control. The architecture of the system is described in the context of a distributed workflow example.