Dynamic workflow modeling and verification

Abstract

The dynamic nature of incident command systems and their requirement for high flexibility raise a challenge to the research and implementation of workflows. The significance of applying formal approaches to the modeling and analysis of workflows has been well recognized and several such approaches have been proposed. However, these approaches require users to master considerable knowledge of the particular formalisms, which impacts their application on a larger scale. To address these challenges, we developed an intuitive, yet formal approach to workflow modeling, enactment and validation. In this paper, we further develop a set of theorems to support dynamic modeling, modification and on-the-fly verification of the workflows. A prototype has been implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the theoretical approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.