The WoMan Formalism for Expressing Process Models

摘要

Workflow management is fundamental to efficiently, effectively and economically carry out complex processes. In turn, the formalism used for representing workflow models is crucial for effectiveness. The formalism introduced by the WoMan framework for workflow management, based on First-Order Logic, is more expressive than standard formalisms adopted in the literature, and ensures strict adherence to the observed practices. This paper discusses in some details such a formalism, highlighting its most outstanding strengths and comparing it to the current standard formalism (Petri nets), also providing techniques for the translation of workflow models among the two formalisms. The comparison between the two models shows that WoMan is more powerful than standard Petri Nets, and that it can handle naturally and straightforwardly cases that would require complex patterns in Petri Nets.