Process control technique using planning and constraint satisfaction

Abstract

We propose a new technique that realizes flexible process control by combining "the planning paradigm" and "the constraint satisfaction paradigm." Two factors should be kept consistent in business processes: business objects and activity sequences. We adopted the planning paradigm to control the sequence of processes and the constraint satisfaction paradigm to keep the objects consistent. We then developed a new process control technique that allows operation support systems to suggest executable activities and consistent values to users dynamically. We implemented a prototype system and confirmed its feasibility. © Springer-Vorlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.