Enterprise-Wide Workflow Management Based on State and Activity Charts

This paper presents an approach towards the specification, verification, and distributed execution of workflows based on state and activity charts, and within the MENTOR project, a coherent prototype system has been built that comprises all three levels.

Abstract

This paper presents an approach towards the specification, verification, and distributed execution of workflows based on state and activity charts. The formal foundation of state and activity charts is exploited at three levels. At the specification level, the formalism enforces precise descriptions of business processes while also allowing subsequent refinements. In addition, precise specifications based on other methods can be automatically converted into state and activity charts. At the level of verification, state charts are amenable to the efficient method of model checking, in order to verify particularly critical workflow properties. Finally, at the execution level, a state chart specification forms the basis for the automatic generation of modules that can be directly executed in a distributed manner. Within the MENTOR project, a coherent prototype system has been built that comprises all three levels: specification, verification, and distributed execution.