A process matching approach for flexible workflow process reuse

Matching between two work¯ow processes is the key step of work¯ow process reuse. This paper presents an inexact matching approach for ¯exible work¯ow process reuse. A multi-valued process specialization relationship is de®ned based on the de®nition of activity specialization and the characteristics of work¯ow process. The matching degree between two work¯ow processes is determined by the matching degrees of their corresponding sub-processes or activities. The matching degree between two activities is determined by the activity-distance between them in the activity-ontology repository. A set of process specialization rules enables a new process matching to be derived from the existing matchings. Users are provided with an SQL-like command to retrieve the required processes in an inexact query condition from the work¯ow-process-ontology repository.