A Multi-agent Based Workflow System Embedded with Web Services

The rapid changes in business environment call for flexible and adaptive workflow systems. In this paper we describe how we incorporate Web Services as well as provide an intelligent resource allocation mechanism to our existing agent-based workflow management system (WfMS). The extended architecture enhances the adaptability aspect of our system. In addition to the process perspective of adaptability it also provides support for resource and task perspectives. We discuss how Web Services can be located and the services provided by them can be invoked. We also discuss how the agents and Web Services can co-exist in order to create highly flexible and dynamic WfMS. Using an example we show how our framework can be used to achieve adaptability from a process, resource and task perspectives using both agents and Web Services.