Coordinating interorganizational workflows based on process-views

Abstract

In multi-enterprise cooperation, an enterprise must monitor the progress of private processes as well as those of the partners to streamline interorganizational workflows. In this work, a process-view model, which extends beyond the conventional activity-based process model, is applied to design workflows across multiple enterprises. A process-view is an abstraction of an implemented process. An enterprise can design various process-views for different partners according to diverse commercial relationships, and establish an integrated process that is comprised of private processes as well as the process-views that these partners provide. Participatory enterprises can obtain appropriate progress information from their own integrated processes, allowing them to collaborate more effectively. Furthermore, interorganizational workflows are coordinated through virtual states of process-views. This work develops a regulated approach to map the states between private processes and process-views. The proposed approach enhances prevalent activity-based process models to be adapted in open and collaborative environments.