van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Kumar, A.
XRL/Woflan: Verification of an XML/Petri-net based language for inter-organizational workflows Proceedings Article
In: Altinkemer, K.; Chari, K. (Ed.): Proceedings of the 6th Informs Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST-2001), pp. 30–45, Informs, Linthicum, MD, 2001.
@inproceedings{Aalst01,
title = {XRL/Woflan: Verification of an XML/Petri-net based language for inter-organizational workflows},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and H. M. W. Verbeek and A. Kumar},
editor = {K. Altinkemer and K. Chari},
url = {http://www.win.tue.nl/~hverbeek/downloads/preprints/Aalst01.pdf},
year = {2001},
date = {2001-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th Informs Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST-2001)},
pages = {30--45},
publisher = {Informs, Linthicum, MD},
abstract = {Internet-based technology, E-commerce, and the rise of networked virtual enterprises have fueled the need for inter-organizational workflows. Although XML allows trading partners to exchange information, it cannot be used to coordinate activities in different organizational entities. Therefore, we developed a workflow language named XRL (eXchangeable Routing Language) for supporting cross-organizational processes. XRL uses XML for the representation of process definitions and Petri nets for its semantics. Since XRL is instance-based, workflow definitions can be changed on the fly and sent across organizational boundaries. These features are vital for today’s dynamic and networked economy. However, these features make cross-organizational workflows susceptible to errors. In this paper, we present XRL/Woflan, a software tool using state-of-the-art Petri-net analysis techniques for verifying XRL workflows. The tool uses XSL (Extensible Style Language) Transformations (called XSLT) to translate XRL specifications to a specific class of Petri nets called workflow nets. The Petri-net representation is used to determine whether the workflow is correct. If the workflow is not correct, anomalies such as deadlocks and livelocks are reported. This approach also makes XRL extensible. Therefore, new, application-specific workflow patterns can be created and incorporated into XRL by expressing their semantics in XSLT.},
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van Hee, K. M.; Reijers, H. A.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Zerguini, L.
On the Optimal Allocation of Resources in Stochastic Workflow Nets Proceedings Article
In: Djemame, K.; Kara, M. (Ed.): Proceedings of the Seventeenth UK Performance Engineering Workshop, pp. 23–34, Print Services University of Leeds, Leeds, 2001.
@inproceedings{Hee01,
title = {On the Optimal Allocation of Resources in Stochastic Workflow Nets},
author = {K. M. van Hee and H. A. Reijers and H. M. W. Verbeek and L. Zerguini},
editor = {K. Djemame and M. Kara},
url = {http://www.win.tue.nl/~hverbeek/downloads/preprints/Hee01.pdf},
year = {2001},
date = {2001-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Seventeenth UK Performance Engineering Workshop},
pages = {23--34},
publisher = {Print Services University of Leeds, Leeds},
abstract = {Stochastic workflow nets are used for modelling and analysing business processes. For a specific subclass, a marginal allocation strategy of resources is presented that minimises the mean sojourn time of individual cases. A popular alternative allocation strategy is shown to be sub-optimal.},
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Kumar, A.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Verbeek, H. M. W.
Dynamic Work Distribution in Workflow Management Systems: How to balance quality and performance? Journal Article
In: Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 157–193, 2001.
@article{Kumar01,
title = {Dynamic Work Distribution in Workflow Management Systems: How to balance quality and performance?},
author = {A. Kumar and W. M. P. van der Aalst and H. M. W. Verbeek},
url = {http://www.win.tue.nl/~hverbeek/downloads/preprints/Kumar01.pdf},
year = {2001},
date = {2001-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS)},
volume = {18},
number = {3},
pages = {157--193},
abstract = {Todays workflow management systems offer work items to workers using rather primitive mechanisms. While most workflow systems support a role-based distribution of work, they have problems dealing with unavailability of workers as a result of vacation or illness, overloading, context dependent suitability, deadlines, and delegation. As a result, the work is offered to too few, too many, or even the wrong set of workers. Current practice is to offer a work item to one person, thus causing problems when the person is not present or too busy, or to offer it to a set of people sharing a given role, thus not incorporating the qualifications and preferences of people. Literature on work distribution is typically driven by considerations related to authorizations and permissions. However, workflow processes are operational processes where there is a highly dynamic trade-off between security and performance. For example, an approaching deadline and an overloaded specialist may be the trigger to offer work items to lesser-qualified workers. This paper addresses this problem by proposing a systematic approach to dynamically create a balance between quality and performance issues in workflow systems. We illustrate and evaluate the proposed approach with a realistic example and also compare how a workflow system would implement this scenario to highlight the shortcomings of current, state of the art workflow systems. Finally, a detailed simulation model is used to validate our approach.},
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Verbeek, H. M. W.; Basten, T.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.
Diagnosing Workflow Processes using Woflan Journal Article
In: The Computer Journal, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 246–279, 2001.
@article{Verbeek01a,
title = {Diagnosing Workflow Processes using Woflan},
author = {H. M. W. Verbeek and T. Basten and W. M. P. van der Aalst},
url = {http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/44/4/246},
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year = {2001},
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abstract = {Workflow management technology promises a flexible solution for business-process support facilitating the easy creation of new business processes and modification of existing processes. Unfortunately, today’s workflow products have no support for workflow verification. Errors made at design-time are not detected and result in very costly failures at run-time. This paper presents the verification tool Woflan. Woflan analyzes workflow process definitions downloaded from commercial workflow products using state-of-the-art Petri-net-based analysis techniques. This paper describes the functionality of Woflan emphasizing diagnostics to locate the source of a design error. Woflan is evaluated via two case studies, one involving twenty groups of students designing a complex workflow process and one involving an industrial workflow process designed by Staffware Benelux. The results are encouraging and show that Woflan guides the user in finding and correcting errors in the design of workflows.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Kumar, A.
Verification of XRL: An XML-based Workflow Language Proceedings Article
In: Shen, W.; Lin, Z.; Barths, J. -P.; Kamel, M. (Ed.): Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on CSCW in Design (CSCWD 2001), pp. 427–432, London, Ontario, Canada, 2001.
@inproceedings{Aalst01a,
title = {Verification of XRL: An XML-based Workflow Language},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and H. M. W. Verbeek and A. Kumar},
editor = {W. Shen and Z. Lin and J. -P. Barths and M. Kamel},
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booktitle = {Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on CSCW in Design (CSCWD 2001)},
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abstract = {XRL (eXchangeable Routing Language) is an instance-based workflow language that uses XML for the representation of process definitions and Petri nets for its semantics. Since XRL is instance-based, workflow definitions can be changed on the fly and sent across organizational boundaries. These features are vital for todays dynamic and networked economy. However, the features also enable subtle, but highly disruptive, cross-organizational errors. On-the-fly changes and one-of-a-kind processes are destined to result in errors. Moreover, errors of a cross-organizational nature are difficult to repair. In this paper, we show soundness properties of XRL constructs by using a novel, constructive approach. We also describe a software tool based on XML and Petri-net technologies for verifying XRL workflows.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Basten, T.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Verkoulen, P. A. C.; Voorhoeve, M.
Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support Book Section
In: Filipe, J. (Ed.): Enterprise Information Systems, pp. 63–70, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 2000.
@incollection{Aalst00,
title = {Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support},
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abstract = {Todays information systems do not support adaptive workflow: either the information system abstracts from the workflow processes at hand and focuses on the management of data and the execution of individual tasks via applications or the workflow is supported by the information system but it is hard to handle changes. This paper addresses this problem by classifying the types of changes. Based on this classification, issues such as syntactic/semantic correctness, case transfer, and management information are discussed. It turns out that the trade-off between flexibility and support raises challenging questions. Only some of these questions are answered in this paper, most of them require further research. Since the success of the next generation of workflow management systems depends on the ability to support adaptive workflow, it is important to provide answers for the questions raised in this paper.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Basten, T.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Verkoulen, P. A. C.; Voorhoeve, M.
Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support Book Section
In: Filipe, J. (Ed.): Enterprise Information Systems, pp. 63–70, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, 2000.
@incollection{Aalst00b,
title = {Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and T. Basten and H. M. W. Verbeek and P. A. C. Verkoulen and M. Voorhoeve},
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abstract = {Todays information systems do not support adaptive workflow: either the information system abstracts from the workflow processes at hand and focuses on the management of data and the execution of individual tasks via applications or the workflow is supported by the information system but it is hard to handle changes. This paper addresses this problem by classifying the types of changes. Based on this classification, issues such as syntactic/semantic correctness, case transfer, and management information are discussed. It turns out that the trade-off between flexibility and support raises challenging questions. Only some of these questions are answered in this paper, most of them require further research. Since the success of the next generation of workflow management systems depends on the ability to support adaptive workflow, it is important to provide answers for the questions raised in this paper.},
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Verbeek, H. M. W.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.
Woflan 2.0: A Petri-net-based Workflow Diagnosis Tool Proceedings Article
In: Nielsen, M.; Simpson, D. (Ed.): Application and Theory of Petri Nets 2000, pp. 475–484, Springer, Berlin, Verlag, 2000.
@inproceedings{Verbeek00,
title = {Woflan 2.0: A Petri-net-based Workflow Diagnosis Tool},
author = {H. M. W. Verbeek and W. M. P. van der Aalst},
editor = {M. Nielsen and D. Simpson},
url = {http://link.springer.de/link/service/series/0558/papers/1825/18250475.pdf},
year = {2000},
date = {2000-01-01},
booktitle = {Application and Theory of Petri Nets 2000},
volume = {1825},
pages = {475--484},
publisher = {Springer, Berlin, Verlag},
series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
abstract = {Workflow management technology promises a flexible solution facilitating the easy creation of new business processes and modification of existing ones. Unfortunately, most of today’s workflow products allow for erroneous processes to be put in production: these products lack proper verification mechanisms in their process-definition tools for the created or modified processes. This paper presents the workflow diagnosis tool Woflan, which fills this gap. Using Petri-net based techniques, Woflan diagnoses process definitions before they are put into production. These process definitions can be imported from commercial workflow products. Furthermore, Woflan guides the modeler of a workflow process definition towards finding and correcting possible errors.},
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Verbeek, H. M. W.; Basten, T.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.
Diagnosing Workflow Processes Using Woflan Technical Report
Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands, no. 48, 2000.
@techreport{Verbeek00a,
title = {Diagnosing Workflow Processes Using Woflan},
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abstract = {Workflow management technology promises a flexible solution for business-process support facilitating the easy creation of new business processes and modification of existing processes. Unfortunately, today’s workflow products have no support for workflow verification. Errors made at design-time are not detected and result in very costly failures at run-time. This paper presents the verification tool Woflan. Woflan analyzes workflow process definitions downloaded from commercial workflow products using state-of-the-art Petri-net-based analysis techniques. This paper describes the functionality of Woflan emphasizing diagnostics to locate the source of a design error. Woflan is evaluated via two case studies, one involving twenty groups of students designing a complex workflow process and one involving an industrial workflow process designed by Staffware Benelux. The results are encouraging and show that Woflan guides the user in finding and correcting errors in the design of workflows.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Basten, T.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Verkoulen, P. A. C.; Voorhoeve, M.
Adaptive Workflow: An Approach Based on Inheritance Proceedings Article
In: Ibrahim, M.; Drabble, B. (Ed.): Proceedings of the IJCAI’99 Workshop on Intelligent Workflow and Process Management: The New Frontier for AI in Business, pp. 36–45, Stockholm, Sweden, 1999.
@inproceedings{Aalst99,
title = {Adaptive Workflow: An Approach Based on Inheritance},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and T. Basten and H. M. W. Verbeek and P. A. C. Verkoulen and M. Voorhoeve},
editor = {M. Ibrahim and B. Drabble},
url = {http://www.win.tue.nl/~hverbeek/downloads/preprints/Aalst99.pdf},
year = {1999},
date = {1999-08-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the IJCAI’99 Workshop on Intelligent Workflow and Process Management: The New Frontier for AI in Business},
pages = {36--45},
address = {Stockholm, Sweden},
abstract = {Today’s information systems do not support adaptive workflow: either the information system abstracts from the workflow processes at hand and focuses on the management of data and the execution of individual tasks via applications or the workflow is supported by the information system but it is hard to handle changes. This paper addresses this problem by classifying the types of changes. Based on this classification, issues such as syntactic/semantic correctness, case transfer, and management information are discussed. It turns out that the trade-off between flexibility and support raises challenging questions. Some of these questions can be answered using advanced inheritance notions. This paper provides four inheritance-preserving transformation rules which can be used to avoid the typical problems related to change.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Basten, T.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; Verkoulen, P. A. C.; Voorhoeve, M.
Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support Proceedings Article
In: Filipe, J.; Cordeiro, J. (Ed.): Proceedings of the First International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pp. 353–360, Setúbal, Portugal, 1999.
@inproceedings{Aalst99a,
title = {Adaptive Workflow: On the Interplay between Flexibility and Support},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and T. Basten and H. M. W. Verbeek and P. A. C. Verkoulen and M. Voorhoeve},
editor = {J. Filipe and J. Cordeiro},
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year = {1999},
date = {1999-03-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the First International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems},
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address = {Setúbal, Portugal},
abstract = {Todays information systems do not support adaptive workflow: either the information system abstracts from the workflow processes at hand and focuses on the management of data and the execution of individual tasks via applications or the workflow is supported by the information system but it is hard to handle changes. This paper addresses this problem by classifying the types of changes. Based on this classification, issues such as syntactic/semantic correctness, case transfer, and management information are discussed. It turns out that the trade-off between flexibility and support raises challenging questions. Only some of these questions are answered in this paper, most of them require further research. Since the success of the next generation of workflow management systems depends on the ability to support adaptive workflow, it is important to provide answers for the questions raised in this paper.},
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Verbeek, H. M. W.; Basten, T.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.
Diagnosing Workflow Processes using Woflan Technical Report
Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands, no. 99/02, 1999.
@techreport{Verbeek99,
title = {Diagnosing Workflow Processes using Woflan},
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abstract = {Workflow management technology promises a flexible solution for business-process support facilitating the easy creation of new business processes and modification of existing processes. Unfortunately, todays workflow products have no support for workflow verification. Errors made at design-time are not detected and result in very costly failures at run-time. This paper presents the verification tool Woflan. Woflan analyzes workflow process definitions downloaded from commercial workflow products using state-of-the-art Petri-net-based analysis techniques. This paper describes the functionality of Woflan emphasizing new diagnostics to locate the source of a design error. Based on a case study (involving twenty groups of students designing a complex workflow process), these new diagnostics have been evaluated and the results have been used to develop a method to guide the user of Woflan in finding and correcting errors in the design of workflows.},
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van der Aalst, W. M. P.; Hauschildt, D.; Verbeek, H. M. W.
A Petri-net-based Tool to Analyze Workflows Proceedings Article
In: Farwer, B.; Moldt, D.; Stehr, M. O. (Ed.): Proceedings of Petri Nets in System Engineering (PNSE’97), pp. 78–90, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, 1997, (FBI-HH-B-205/97).
@inproceedings{Aalst97,
title = {A Petri-net-based Tool to Analyze Workflows},
author = {W. M. P. van der Aalst and D. Hauschildt and H. M. W. Verbeek},
editor = {B. Farwer and D. Moldt and M. O. Stehr},
url = {http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/TGI/aktuelles/pnse97/papers/aalst.ps.gz},
year = {1997},
date = {1997-09-01},
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abstract = {Workflow management systems facilitate the everyday operation of business processes by taking care of the logistic control of work. In contrast to traditional information systems, they attempt to support frequent changes of the workflows at hand. Therefore, the need for analysis methods to verify the correctness of workflows is becoming more prominent. In this paper we present a tool based on Petri nets: Woflan. Woflan (WOrkFLow ANalyzer) is an analysis tool which can be used to verify the correctness of a workflow procedure. The analysis tool uses state-of-the-art techniques to find potential errors in the definition of a workflow procedure.},
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Hauschildt, D.; Verbeek, H. M. W.; van der Aalst, W. M. P.
WOFLAN: a Petri-net-based Workflow Analyzer Technical Report
Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands, no. 97/12, 1997.
@techreport{Hauschildt97,
title = {WOFLAN: a Petri-net-based Workflow Analyzer},
author = {D. Hauschildt and H. M. W. Verbeek and W. M. P. van der Aalst},
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year = {1997},
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abstract = {Workflow management systems facilitate the everyday operation of business processes by taking care of the logistic control of work. In contrast to traditional information systems, the attempt to support frequent changes of the workflows at hand. Therefore, the need for analysis methods to verify the correctness of workflows is becoming more prominent. In this monograph we present a tool based on Petri nets: Woflan. Woflan (WOrkFLow ANalyser) is an analysis tool which can be used to verify the correctness of a workflow procedure. The analysis tool uses state-of-the-art techniques to find potential errors in the definition of a workflow procedure.},
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