Extending the Workflow Reference Model to Accommodate Dynamism

Many challenging applications are inherently dynamic. This is mainly due to the ever changing environment applications are subjected to in areas such as supply chains, logistics or business process support. Workflow technology is often applied to find solutions in these domains. It aims to provide computer support to the management of business processes in general. However, this technology offers little support to the dynamism inherent to those applications. The Workflow Management Coalition has developed a standard general model for Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs). This model, called the Workflow Reference Model (WfRM), does not support dynamism. This paper presents an extension of this model in order to accommodate dynamism. We focus our research towards dynamic workflow support for enegotiation and transportation applications. Requirements for supporting dynamic modifications in workflow technology are gathered from the study of these applications. The derived list of requirements serves as a valuable input for the extension of the model. An implementation of the conceptual extension enhancing the functionality of an already existing WfRM compliant WfMS, is presented.