Business-to-business workflow interoperation based on process-views

Abstract

When cooperating with each other, enterprises must closely monitor internal processes and those of partners to streamline business-to-business (B2B) workflows. This work applies the process-view model, which extends beyond conventional activity-based process models, to design workflows across multiple enterprises. A process-view is an abstraction of an implemented process. An enterprise can design various process-views for different partners based on diverse commercial relationships and, in doing so, establish an integrated process that consists of internal processes and process-views that each partner provides. Participatory enterprises can obtain appropriate progress information from their own integrated processes, allowing them to collaborate effectively. Furthermore, B2B workflows are coordinated through virtual states of process-views. This work develops a uniform approach to manage state mappings between internal processes and process-views. The proposed approach enhances prevalent activity-based process models adaptable to collaborative environments. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.