1999 · 77 citations · 9 references
BusinessInformation SystemsManagement Information SystemsBusiness Process ManagementEnterprise SystemsService OperationsBusiness Process AnalysisBusiness Process ReengineeringProcess ModelingWorkflow AnalysisWorkflow ManagementWorkflow OrchestrationBusiness Process OrchestrationContinuous-time Markov ChainsService-oriented Workflow DesignService-oriented Workflow ManagementWorkflow Modeling
Competitive markets drive companies to outsource activities, forming virtual enterprises, while workflow concepts have streamlined internal processes but remain largely confined to single organizations. The study proposes a service‑oriented workflow model to address cross‑organizational workflow challenges. The authors derive external service models using continuous‑time Markov chains that analyze observable behavior. The approach enables quality assessment of external services while preserving provider autonomy.
Competitive markets force companies to form virtual enterprises by outsourcing activities to external service providers. The workflow concept has been very successful in streamlining business processes by automating the coordination of activities, but has so far been limited to use within single organizations. To address the problems of cross-organizational workflows, we use a service-oriented workflow model. Within this approach, we present a technique to derive a model of the external services, based on continuous-time Markov chains, by analysing their externally observable behaviour. This allows one to assess the quality of the external services without compromising the autonomy of the service providers.
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