Dynamical and Distributed Process Management Based on Agent Technology

Business processes are mostly very complex and take place in a dynamic and distributed field. Information technology support for these processes requires an advanced process management system which enhances currently available workflow management services with respect to integration, flexibility, and adaptation. In order to apply intelligent agent technologies to process management two different basic approaches are possible: Multi-agent systems with the domain of process management, or intelligent agents as a key infrastructure technology for building process management systems. We present an uniform and flexible framework for advanced process management which follows the latter approach and introduce different agent types for managing activities, products, and resources which cover specific views on the processes.