MODELLING THE DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN

WORKFLOW COMPONENTS

L. Pudhota E. Chang & J. Davis

School of IS, Curtin University of Technology, PO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845, Australia

Keywords: workflow models, dynamic relationship, modelling

Abstract: Whether the economy is strong or weak, competition is fierce. The need for business change to maintain a

competitive edge comes faster in this rough business environment causing the business process model to get

more dynamic and complex. However, one has to manage it so the efficiency of business processes are

maximised. This paper develops a modelling approach for dynamic business processes, defining exceptions

and enabling business strategies to be captured vigorously while simultaneously allowing changes to be

handled. We introduce the MAO workflow model, and we propose the automation of workflow

components using MDA

1 EXISTING WORKFLOW

MODELS

General Organisational Workflow Models

In general, we found that most workflow modelling

and workflow design are only concentrated on the

operational aspects of the organisation

(Siebert, 1996)

(Sheth et al., 1998) (Marshak , 1994)

(http://www.loria.fr/~skaf/cours/

workflow/workflow/sld00.htm) . Although operational

aspects of workflow design are crucial to the

organisation, we note that they are passive in

changes and they are not dynamic. They only change

when there is a management decision. Collaborative

workflow is a new type of workflow that has to be

integrated into the existing operational workflow.

Marshak Organisational Workflow Model

As per the paper by Marshak, R.T.:

(Marshak , 1994),

in any organisation, a workflow can be disseminated

into three categories.

a Ad-hoc workflows involve human coordination,

collaboration, co-decision, and often appear in office

processes such as product documentation or sales

proposals.

b Administrative workflows involve repetitive,

predictable processes with simple task coordination

rules, such as routing an expense report or travel

request through an authorisation process.

c Production workflows (automated tasks being

performed repeatedly) production workflow

encompasses an information process often involving

interaction to one or more

distributed/heterogeneous/autonomous information

systems.

Dr Hala Skaf-molli Workflow Model

According to Dr Hala Skaf-molli

(

http://www.loria.fr/~skaf/cours/workflow/workflow/sld0

0.htm), workflow can be categorised into four

groups.

Figure 1: Categories of Workflow by Dr Hala Skaf-molli

Lano’s Classification

Figure 2: Lano’s Classification

495

Pudhota L., Chang E. and Davis J. (2004).

MODELLING THE DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORKFLOW COMPONENTS.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 495-500

DOI: 10.5220/0002628004950500

 SciTePress

According to Lano’s Classification, we see that

supplier, customer, delivery and order are external to

the organisational boundary and purchasing,

operational and selling are classified as part of

organisational boundary. This model is suitable for

some organisations and may not be standard across

other organisations.

2 ISSUES IN ORGANISATIONAL

WORKFLOW COMPONENTS

We find that an organisation would contain a

number of organisational units and divisions, such as

management, administration, operation and

customer service. Each one of these organisational

units could comprise of a number of smaller

functional units for which each may have one or

many workflow components for which they carry

out specific tasks, responsibility and workflow

processes. Therefore, an organisational workflow is

a composition of a number of workflow

components. Some workflow components are active

when changes take place and some are passive.

So far, no analysis has been done in literature for the

classification of workflow components, their inter-

relationships or formal definition of their attributes

and processes. There has been some existing

workflow modelling techniques used in literature to

help modelling the workflow and dynamic aspect of

the workflow, such as Petri Nets

(Aalst et al., 999),

Event-driven Models, State Event and Action Rules

(Nutt, 996) (Aalst et al., 2000), UML Activity

Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams and Extended

Activity Diagrams

(Gautama et al., 2000) (Gantama et

al., 2003)

. We found that these techniques allow for

modelling for existing processes. However,

a. They don’t model the inter-relationship between

the workflow components. Some aspect of

concurrency and asynchronous execution of the

different workflow process (i.e. multi-threading);

and

b. Their current use does not deal with the dynamic

aspect of workflow models or provide a clear

indication where the flexibility is allowed, when

changes occur or how the organisation can adapt the

changes at Just-In-Time; and

c. These modelling techniques only model one

aspect of organisational workflow, and sometimes

have too low a level of representation and they are

basically not applicable at the conceptual level of

development of complex organisational workflow

systems

(Bossidy et al., 2003) (Chang et al., 2003).

The necessity for modelling the workflow at a

higher level of granularity that involves many sub-

workflow components and workflow processes, their

interfaces, interaction and relationships

3 MAO MODEL [MANAGERIAL,

ADMINISTRATIVE AND

OPERATIONAL]

In our study, we have found that there are many

workflow components within an organisation and

these workflow components interact with each other

to achieve the organisation goals and objectives.

Therefore, we disseminate the organisation

workflow into following levels (refer to figure 3:)

Operational workflow relates to the core business

operations. It is usually measured by its

performance and by the volume of its output. The

operational workflow is the main source of value

generation for the organisation.

Administrative control workflows are involved in

making decisions and prioritising tasks and

scheduling tasks. The administrative task workflow

is measured by its efficiency.

Managerial workflow carries out business

decisions, which in turn control entire business

administration and is measured by the financial and

final results.

3.1 MAO in Collaborative Workflow

Environment

The advent of the Internet has provided mechanisms

to allow organisations to bind together, for carrying

out sales over great distances at any time. It has

created new modes for operation service and

marketing and enabled partnerships previously

inconceivable within a wide array of businesses as

well as other human activities. A consequence of

this connectivity and information richness is that one

is faced with an increasingly dynamic business

environment and workflow. Several factors

characterise this collaboration

(Chang et al., 2003),

namely:

A strong information infrastructure that extends

beyond the original closed walls of the individual

enterprise. High connectivity and electronic

handling of information, of all sorts including data

and documents.

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An increasingly collaborative approach between

what were more traditional individual enterprises.

Utilisation of new forms of electronic interaction,

provision of services and utilisation of services.

Ability to self-organise and reconfigure the business

of the organisation, perhaps even the organisation as

a whole. Use of multiple channels for sales and

marketing. These features are increasingly exhibited

by successful modern business organisations. We

have found that our MAO model is suitable for a

collaborative environment.

Figure 3: Collaborative workflow model for Logistic Consortium

Managerial

Administrative

Op Op

Customers

Suppliers

Partners

Organisation

Managerial

Administrative

Administrative Administrative

Op Op

Customers

Suppliers

Partners

Organisation

Managerial

Administrative

Custom ers

Suppliers

Partners

Organisation

4 HIERARCHICAL

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN

WORKFLOW COMPONENTS

AND SUB- WORKFLOW

COMPONENTS

Through analysis we have defined the relationships

in an organisation as follows:

1. Operational Workflow is the main source of

value generation for the organisation

2. Administrative Workflow is divided into four

subcomponents, Administrative control workflows

are involved in making decisions and prioritising

tasks and scheduling tasks. The administrative

task workflow is measured by its efficiency.

3. Managerial Workflow carries out business

decisions, which in turn control entire business

administration and is measured by the financial

and final results. Their hierarchy of the

aggregation of the workflow components is shown

below:

MODELLING THE DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORKFLOW COMPONENTS

497

Figure 4: Hierarchy Decomposition of Enterprise Workflow Model

Figure5: Collaborative Workflow Components

5 WORKFLOW COMPONENTS

We define the collaboration of these workflow

components by the following collaboration diagram,

in figure 5 shows three major workflows. The

arrows show one way of the flow control. Customer

service workflow relates to events such as order

request and order fulfilment. Incoming order

workflow takes the customers input and outgoing

service workflow delivers the goods and services to

the customers. Note that administration workflow

and operational workflow are relatively structured

and stable in an organisation. Their changes are not

random or frequent. The efficiency of

administrative workflow management and

performance of the operational workflow

management create value for the organisation.

However, we find that the course of the above two

workflows is due to changes in the managerial

workflow component. Managerial workflow

governs the entire administrative workflow and

operational workflow. It is executed through

strategic decision-making, and this strategic

execution is driven by business operation planning,

change management and outcome evaluation. Over

the execution of the managerial workflow

component, it collaborates with the administrative

workflow component and operational workflow

component. Managerial workflow component is the

Managerial

Component

Operational component

Customer

service

Accountin

Human

Resources

Administrative

control

Operational

control

Productio

n control

Out

Input

Task

Output

Administrative component

Components

Flow

Component-based Collaborative Workflow

Admin

contol

workflow

Organisational Workflow

Managerial

workflow

Administrative

workflow

Operational

workflow

Accounts

management

workflow

Human

resources

management

workflow

Customer

relations

workflow

Production

workflow

Operational

control

workflow

Outgoing deliveries

workflow

Job input

workflow

Action or Task

workflow

Output

workflow

flow

Com

onents

Inheritance

Incoming request

workflow

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

498

primary cause of the dynamic workflow changes of

an organisation. In our opinion, the managerial

workflow is usually unstructured, dynamic and the

process changes over time and is driven by market

pressure, economic competition and business value

therefore managerial workflow is dynamic, flexible

and sometimes ad-hoc. Therefore, if we make the

administrative and operational workflow

components flexible, which inturn causes

managerial workflow changes; the administrative

workflow and operational workflow component can

be automatic or semi-automatic changes. We have

found that no work exists in the current literature of

modelling dynamism of the managerial workflow.

However, some work exists in modelling flexible

workflow that can deal with changes in literature

close to administrative workflow and operational

workflow

(Aalst et al., 999) (Chiu et al., 998) (Horn et

al., 998)

(Joeris, 2000).

6 AUTOMATED WORKFLOW

A workflow model represents a group of workflow

etween workflow

elling the collaborative organisational

flow components to

tionships and collaborations of

es that

d on a specific platform

from which one can implement the system. It allows

7 CONCLUSION

discussed, developing

modelling approach for dynamic business processes,

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