In: Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC'2000), 8-11 October 2000, Nashville, TN, Vol. 4, pages 3159-3164. 2000.
Abstract: The specification of intra- and inter-organizational workflows in a manner which scales up to complex workflows across division and company borders is a central issue for nowadays workflow modeling. The approach described in this paper integrates standard object-oriented structure modeling with UML diagrams with Petri net techniques for specifying behavior in order to provide an adequate support for modeling all aspects of workflows. The approach puts its emphasis on structuring and abstraction techniques to manage the size and complexity of real-life applications. A contract mechanism is used to ensure the independence of different companies and to permit the reuse of partial workflows in a manner which is secure for the offering as well as the using side.
Keywords: Petri nets, UML, object-coordination nets, workflow modeling, workflow specification.