Verification of Interorganizational Workflows

摘要

To date, workflow management focuses on improving the effectivity and efficiency211u001eof business processes within one organization. However, today's corporations are 211u001echallenged to cross organizational boundaries. Phenomena such as electronic 211u001ecommerce, extended enterprises and the Internet stimulate the cooperation between 211u001eorganizations. Therefore, it is interesting to consider workflow distributed over 211u001ea number of organizations. Interorganizational workflow offers companies the 211u001eopportunity to re-shape business processes beyond the boundaries of individual 211u001eorganizations. In this paper, we use message sequence charts to specify the 211u001einteraction between organizations. Petri nets are used to model 211u001einterorganizational workflow. Two important questions are answered by the results 211u001epresented in this paper. (1) What are the minimal requirements any 211u001einterorganizational workflow should satisfy; and (2) How to decide whether an 211u001einterorganization workflow (modeled in term of Petri nets) is consistent with the 211u001einteraction structure specified in terms of a message sequence chart.