Title
An Incremental Approach to the Analysis and Transformation of Workflows Using Region Trees
Abstract
The analysis of workflows in terms of structural correctness is important for ensuring the quality of workflow models. Typically, this analysis is only one step in a larger development process, followed by further transformation steps that lead from high-level models to more refined models until the workflow can finally be deployed on the underlying workflow engine of the production system. For practical and scalable applications, both analysis and transformation of workflows must be integrated to allow incremental changes of larger workflows. In this paper, we introduce the concept of a region tree (RT) for workflow models that can be used as the central data structure for both workflow analysis and workflow transformation. An RT is similar to a program structure tree and imposes a hierarchy of regions as an overlay structure onto the workflow model. It allows an incremental approach to the analysis and transformation of workflows, and thereby, significantly reduces the overhead because individual regions can be dealt with separately. The RT is built using a set of region-growing rules. The set of rules presented here is shown to be correct and complete in the sense that a workflow is region-reducible as defined through these rules if and only if it is semantically sound.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1109/TSMCC.2008.919178
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C
Keywords
Field
DocType
engines,tree data structures,data structure,development process,production system,business process model,model driven engineering,process control,region growing,production systems,graphical models,control flow,testing,petri nets,workflow engine,business process modeling,refining
Data mining,Workflow technology,Petri net,Computer science,Tree structure,XPDL,Workflow engine,Workflow management system,Event-driven process chain,Workflow
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
38
3
1094-6977
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
18
1.15
13
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Rainer Hauser118517.35
Michael Friess2615.74
Jochen Malte Küster345831.35
Jussi Vanhatalo452922.88