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Workflow Management Systems Supporting the Engineering of Business Networks

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Workflow Management Systems Supporting the Engineering of Business Networks Workflow Management Systems Supporting the Engineering of Business Networks DIOGO MANUEL RIBEIRO FERREIRA Workflow Management Systems Supporting the Engineering of Business Networks Dissertação apresentada à Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor João José da Silva e Cunha Pinto Ferreira, Professor Associado da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto DEPARTAMENTO DE ENGENHARIA ELECTROTÉCNICA E DE COMPUTADORES FACULDADE DE ENGENHARIA DA UNIVERSIDADE DO PORTO 2004 Esta dissertação foi apreciada a 17 de Fevereiro de 2004, na Sala de Actos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, e aprovada por unanimidade pelo júri com a seguinte constituição: Presidente: Doutor José Manuel de Araújo Baptista Mendonça, Professor Catedrático da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto Vogais: Doutor Nuno Manuel de Carvalho Ferreira Guimarães, Professor Catedrático da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa Doutor Francisco Coelho Soares de Moura, Professor Associado da Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho Doutor João José da Cunha e Silva Pinto Ferreira, Professor Associado da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto Doutor Américo Lopes Azevedo, Professor Auxiliar da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto Doutor João Carlos Pascoal de Faria, Professor Auxiliar da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto ISBN 972-9051-32-1 Cover design: CAETSU Publicidade S.A. First printing: July 2003 Second printing: March 2004 Printed in Portugal This document contains information about software products, components, and technologies. In most cases, the names of commercial products are registered trademarks of their respective vendors. The information contained herein has been included with the sole purpose of supporting a line of reasoning and not with the intention of providing a complete description of any product. While referring to these products and technologies there was absolutely no intention to publicize or depreciate them in any way. This work has been funded by: Este trabalho foi financiado por: Fundação para a CiênciaeaTecnologia (FCT) http://www.fct.mct.pt Abstract The Internet has an unparalleled potential to reshape the way companies conduct their businesses. As a globally connected and widely accessible network infrastructure, the Internet allows an enterprise to integrate its business processes with those of its business partners. At the same time, it allows an enterprise to discover and establish business relationships with other business partners as well. Provided with a common, global network infrastructure, enterprises can associate with each other in order to become more competitive or to offer improved products or services. The result is the formation of business networks, which combine the competencies of several business partners. This scenario requires enterprises to be able to integrate and coordinate business processes that extend beyond their borders. For this purpose, enterprises need a technological solution that provides them with flexibility regarding the kind of business processes they can establish with each other, and that provides them with control over those processes while respecting the autonomy of each business partner. The ability to define and control the execution of business processes has always been the main focus of workflow management systems. However, workflow management systems have been typ- ically employed within a single enterprise. More recently, some research projects have turned to the possibility of applying workflow management in inter-enterprise environments. This thesis is a study of the design issues and technological options that are relevant to the development of workflow management systems that address the integration of inter-enterprise business processes. Based on a survey of existing workflow management systems, and on perspectives from the field of Enterprise Integration, this work establishes the fundamental result that every workflow manage- ment system should be developed as a combination of a workflow enactment service and an inte- gration infrastructure. These two components have different requirements, and should be designed separately. A workflow management system that supports inter-enterprise business processes calls for an integration infrastructure that is suitable for inter-enterprise environments. The thesis describes the main technological options for an inter-enterprise integration infrastruc- ture by presenting a study of some of the most important business-to-business integration approaches. However, the experiences from two research projects suggest that only a completely decentralized infrastructure can succeed in an environment such as a business network, which comprises a set of autonomous business partners and therefore favors horizontal rather than hierarchical business struc- tures. On the other hand, the thesis identifies the common and desirable features for any workflow en- actment service in general, and suggests that, instead of developing every new workflow management system from scratch, the development of workflow solutions could be based on a reusable core of workflow functionality which provides basic process modeling and execution capabilities. The proposed solution to the integration of inter-enterprise business processes is a combination of a reusable workflow enactment service and a peer-to-peer integration infrastructure. The proposed workflow management system can support the whole life cycle of business relationships, from partner search to selection, contracting, fulfillment and evaluation - this process is referred to as the engineer- ing of a business network. The result is also a generalized solution that can support both intra- and inter-enterprise business processes. 5 6 Résumé L’Internet offre des possibilités intéressantes et inégalées de remodeler la manière que les entre- prises conduisent leurs affaires. Comme une infrastructure globalement reliée et largement accessible, l’Internet permet aux entreprises d’intégrer leurs processus d’affaires avec ceux de leurs partenaires. En autre, elle permet aussi à une entreprise de découvrir et établir des rapports d’affaires avec d’autres partenaires. Avec une infrastructure de réseau commun, les entreprises peuvent s’associer entre elles afin de devenir plus concurrentielles ou afin d’offrir les produits et les services améliorés. Le résultat c’est la formation de réseaux d’affaires, qui combinent les compétences de plusieurs partenaires. Ce scénario exige que les entreprises soient capables d’intégrer et coordonner des processus d’affaires qui se prolongent au delà de leurs frontières. À cette fin, les entreprises ont besoin d’une solution technologique qui leur fournit de la flexibilité concernant le genre de processus d’affaires qu’elles peuvent établir avec d’autres entreprises, et qui leur fournit le contrôle de ces processus-lá tout en respectant l’autonomie de chaque partenaire. La capacité de définir et commander l’exécution des processus d’affaires a toujours été le principal objectif des systèmes de workflow. Cependant, les systèmes de workflow sont typiquement utilisés au sein d’une seule entreprise. Plus récemment, quelques projets de recherche se sont tournés vers la possibilité d’appliquer la gestion de workflow dans un environnement de plusieurs entreprises. Ce travail est une étude des issues de conception et des options technologiques qui sont remarquables pour le développement des systèmes de workflow qui permettent l’intégration des processus d’affaires entre des entreprises. Basé sur un aperçu des systèmes de workflow existants, et sur des perspectives relatifs à l’intégration d’entreprise, ce travail aboutit à une conclusion fondamentale: n’importe quel système de workflow doit être développé comme une combinaison entre un service d’exécution de workflow et une infrastructure d’intégration. Un système de workflow qui soutient l’intégration de processus d’affaires entre des entreprises a besoin d’une infrastructure d’intégration convenable. Ce travail décrit les principales options technologiques pour une infrastructure d’intégration entre des entreprises en présentant une étude de quelques des approches d’intégration business-to-business le plus important. Cependant, l’expérience de deux projets de recherche suggère que seulement une infrastructure complètement décentralisée est convenable à un réseau d’affaires, qui comporte un ensemble de partenaires autonomes et qui favorise donc plutôt les structures horizontales d’affaires que les structures hiérarchiques. Dautre part, ce travail identifie les caractéristiques communes et souhaitables pour n’importe quel service d’exécution de workflow en général, et suggère que, au lieu de développer chaque nouveau système de workflow depuis le début, le développement de solutions de workflow pourrait être basé sur un noyau réutilisable de la fonctionnalité de workflow qui fournit tout de suite les possibilités de base pour modeler et exécuter des processus. La solution proposée à l’intégration des processus d’affaires entre des entreprises est une com- binaison entre un service réutilisable d’exécution de workflow et une infrastructure d’intégration du genre peer-to-peer. Le système de workflow proposé peut soutenir tout le cycle de vie des rapports d’affaires, dès la recherche de partenaires jusqu’aux moments de sélection, de contrat, d’operation et d’évaluation. Tout
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