Towards agent-based modeling and verification of collaborative business processes: An approach centered on interactions and behaviors (original) (raw)

AN APPLICATION OF AN EXPRESSIVE COLOURED PETRI NETS MODELING METHODOLOGY TO A BUSINESS TO BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

The dynamic nature of cooperative agent environment makes considerably more difficult the task of modeling permanent interactions among agents. This problem becomes rather hard if more than two agents are involved. So far, traditional approaches deal with the problem of modeling interactions in static conditions and commonly with only two agents participating concurrently in cooperative tasks. The complex nature of such dynamic environments, such as e-business, demands to build adequate tools to manage multiple interactions with efficient expressiveness. This problem remains one of the most important challenges in cooperative multi-agents system research. In this paper, it is proposed an application of an efficient methodology based on Coloured Petri Nets to model multiple interactions, which takes into account the expressiveness as its most important property. The model was tested within a business to business (B2B) environment where concurrent interactions among buyers, suppliers and the marketplace constitute a dynamic process that need to be permanently monitored and controlled. This methodology provides great advantages in the representation and reasoning for the interaction mechanism modeled in cooperative information systems. The methodology integrates mainly: a) the action basic loop in order to represent the system interactions and to model organization conversations, b) the use of CPN for the interaction modeling and system simulation, c) the communicative acts of FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents), included in the Agent Communication Language Specification.

A class of Petri nets for modeling and analyzing business processes

More and more firms are marching to the drumbeat of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Workflow Management (WFM). This trend exposes the need for techniques for the construction and analysis of business procedures. In this paper we focus on a class of Petri nets suitable for the representation, validation and verification of these procedures. We will show that the correctness of a procedure represented by such a Petri net can be verified in polynomial time. Based on this result we provide a comprehensive set of transformation rules which can be used to construct and modify correct procedures.

A Petri Net Based Methodology for Business Process Modeling and Simulation

Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Modelling, Simulation, Verification and Validation of Enterprise Information Systems, 2006

In this paper we introduce a modeling methodology for the study of business processes, including their design, redesign, modeling, simulation and analysis. The methodology, called TOP, is based on the theoretical concept of a transaction which we derive from the Language Action Perspective (LAP). In particular, we regard business processes in an organization as patterns of communication between different actors to represent the underlying actions. TOP is supported by a set of extensions of basic Petri nets notations, resulting in a tool that can be used to build models of business processes and to analyze these models. The result is a more practical methodology for business process modeling and simulation.

An ontology-based evaluation of process modeling with petri nets

2007

Selecting an appropriate business process modeling technique forms an important task within the methodological challenges of business process management and workflow engineering projects. Many of the available techniques have been developed on the basis of Petri nets, which is a popular modeling technique for workflow-oriented applications. Despite the popularity of Petri nets, however, a comprehensive evaluation of this standard notation is still required. Such an evaluation would afford a deeper understanding of the capabilities and shortcomings of this fundamental process modeling technique. This paper presents the first contribution towards a theoretically sound analysis of the representational capabilities of Petri nets. Based on an established methodology, we conducted a representational analysis of Petri nets using a representation model based on the Bunge ontology. Through this work, we identify a number of issues related to the practice of process modeling with Petri nets in contemporary process management initiatives. Our findings contribute to the ongoing revision and extension of process modeling techniques based on Petri nets and as such may lead to more mature solutions to business process modeling and management.

BPMN Formalisation using Coloured Petri Nets

2nd Annual International Conference on Software Engineering & Applications (SEA 2011), 2011

Business process modeling is an increasingly popular method for improving organizational efficiency and quality. The ability to automatically validate the process model became a significant feature of modeling tools with the increasing complexity of enterprise business processes and richness of modeling languages. This paper proposes formal semantics for process modeling by mapping Business Process Modeling Notations (BPMN) to Coloured Petri Nets (CPN). We automate the transformation process to allow for automatically validating the business process model. Formalizing BPMN using CPN enables simulating business process behavior to facilitate the early detection of flaws.

Petri Net: A Tool for Modeling and Analyze Multi-agent Oriented Systems

International Journal of Intelligent Systems and Applications, 2012

Analysis and proper assessment of multiagent system properties are very much important. In this paper, we discussed about methodologies for modeling, analysis and design of multi-agent oriented system with the help of Petri net. A Multi-agent system can be considered as a discrete-event dynamic system and Petri nets are used as a modeling tool to assess the structural properties of the multi-agent system. Petri net provides an assessment of the interaction properties of the multiagent.

Challenges in business process management: Verification of business processes using Petri nets

Bulletin of the EATCS, 2003

Abstract. Most scientists working on formal methods are mainly focusing on technical systems such as circuit design, embedded systems, traffic control, etc. Few are working on the application of formal methods to business processes. As a result, interesting problems in the domain of Business Process Management (BPM) are not addressed. To stimulate the application of formal methods to BPM, the following two conferences, taking place in June 2003, are co-located:(1) the International Conference on Applications and Theory of Petri ...

Agents Petri Nets: Theory and Application

The domain of Petri Nets (PN) engineering has been the concern of many researchers. The present paper lies within this context aiming at the definition of a new formalism for the modelling at the multi agents systems (MAS), which is based on agents called Agents Petri Net (APN). That is why, the definitions that treat the internal state of the agent and its behavior are proposed. The suggested mathematical definitions help us to model the interactive systems in a rigorous manner and without any ambiguity. It is through simple examples that our approach is proven to be valid.

A Petri-net based formalisation of interaction protocols applied to business process integration

2008

This paper presents a new approach for Business Process Integration based on Interaction Protocols. It enables both integration and collaboration of autonomous and distributed business processes modules. We present a semantic formalisation of the interaction protocols notations used in our approach. The semantics and its application are described on the basis of translation rules to Coloured Petri Nets and the benefits of formalisation are shown. The verified and validated interaction protocols specification is exploited afterwards with an intermediate agent called « Integrator Agent » to enact the integration process and to manage it efficiently in all steps of composition and monitoring.