Dynamic Workflow Modeling and Analysis in Incident Command Systems

Abstract

The workflow management of incident command systems (ICSs) has been challenged by the systems' special requirements on flexibility, intuitiveness, and capacity of correctness verification. The significance of applying formal approaches to the modeling and analysis of workflows has been well recognized, and many such approaches have been proposed. However, these approaches require users to master considerable knowledge of the particular formalisms, which impacts the application of these approaches on a larger scale. This paper presents a new formal, yet intuitive, approach for the modeling and analysis of workflows, which attempts to overcome the aforementioned problem. In addition to the abilities of supporting workflow validation and enactment, this new approach possesses the distinguishing feature of allowing users who are not proficient in formal methods to build up and dynamically modify the workflow models that address the flexibility needs of ICSs.