Adding flexibility to workflows through incremental planning | Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Adding flexibility to workflows through incremental planning

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Workflow management systems usually interpret a workflow definition rigidly. However, there are real life situations where users should be allowed to deviate from the prescribed static workflow definition for various reasons, including lack of information, unavailability of the required resources and unanticipated situations. Furthermore, workflow complexity may grow exponentially if all possible combinations of anticipated scenarios must be compiled into the workflow definition. To flexibilize workflow execution and help reduce workflow complexity, this paper proposes a dual strategy that combines a library of predefined typical workflows with a planner mechanism capable of incrementally synthesizing new workflows, at execution time. This dual strategy is motivated by the difficulty of designing emergency plans, modeled as workflows, which account for real-life complex crisis or accident scenarios.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
¥17,985 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Japan)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. Bruegge B, O’Toole K, Rothenberger D (1994) Design considerations for an accident management system. In: Proc. conf. cooperative information sys., pp 90–100

  2. Van de Walle B and Turoff M (2007). Emergency response information systems: emerging trends and technologies special section—introduction. Commun ACM 50(3): 29–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Van de Walle B and Turoff M (2007) Decision support for emergency situations. In: Burstein F, Holsapple C (eds) Handbook on Decision Support Systems, Internat. Handbook on information systems series. Springer, Heidelberg

    Google Scholar 

  4. Casanova MA, Coelho TAS, Carvalho MTM, Corseuil ELT, Nóbrega H, Dias FM, Levy CH (2002) The Design of XPAE—an emergency plan definition language. In: IV Simpósio Brasileiro de GeoInformática - Caxambú, MG, Brasil, 2002

  5. Carvalho MT, Freire J, Casanova MA (2001) The architecture of an emergency plan deployment system. In: III Workshop Brasileiro de GeoInformática, Instituto Militar de Engenharia, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, October 2001, pp 19–26

  6. Ciarlini AEM, Veloso PAS, Furtado AL (2000) A formal framework for modelling at the behavioural level. In: Proceedings of the European–Japanese conference on information modeling and knowledge bases, pp 67–81

  7. van der Aalst WMP, Barros AP, Hofstede AHM, Kiepuszewski B (2000) Advanced workflow patterns. In: Conf. on coop. information systems, pp 18–29

  8. Furtado AL, Ciarlini AEM (1997) Plots of narratives over temporal databases. In: Proceedings of 8th international workshop on database and expert systems applications (DEXA ’97)

  9. Ciarlini AEM, Furtado AL (1999) Simulating the interaction of database agents. In: Proceedings of DEXA’99 database and expert systems applications conference, Florence, Sept. 1999

  10. Ciarlini AEM, Pozzer CT, Furtado AL, Feijó B A (2005) A logic-based tool for interactive generation and dramatization of stories. In: Proc. ACM SIGCHI international conference on advances in computer entertainment technology (ACE 2005), Valencia, Spain

  11. Yang Q, Tenenberg J and Woods S (1996). On the implementation and evaluation of abtweak. Comput Intell J 12(2): 295–318

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Chapman D (1987). Planning for conjunctive goals. Artif Intell 32: 333–377

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Reiter R (1978). On Closed World Databases. In: Gallaire, H and Minker, J (eds) Logic and databases, pp 55–76. Plenum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  14. Schank RC and Abelson RP (1977). Scripts, plans, goals and understanding. Erlbaum, Hillsdale

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Furtado AL, Ciarlini AEM (2001) Constructing Libraries of Typical Plans. In: Proceedings of the 13th international Conference on advanced information systems engineering, 2001

  16. Srivastava B, Koehler J (2004) Planning with workflows—an emerging paradigm for web service composition. In: ICAPS 2004 Workshop on planning and scheduling for web and grid services, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, June 2004

  17. Martínez E, Lespérance Y (2004) Web service composition as a planning task: experiments using knowledge-based planning. In: ICAPS 2004 workshop on planning and scheduling for web and grid services, Whistler, June 2004

  18. Carman M, Serafini L, Traverso P (2003) Web service composition as planning. In: ICAPS 2003 Workshop on planning for web services, Trento, June 2003

  19. Margaria T (2005). Web services-based tool-integration in the ETI platform. SoSyM Int J Softw Syst Modell 4(2): 141–156

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wu D, Parsia B, Sirin E, Hendler J, Nau D (2003) Automating DAML-S web services composition using SHOP2. In: Proceedings of 2nd Int’l. SemanticWeb Conf. (ISWC2003), Florida, 2003

  21. Sheshagiri M, desJardins M, Finin T (2003) A planner for composing services described in DAML-S. In: ICAPS 2003Workshop on Planning forWeb Services, Trento

  22. Doherty P and Kvarnström J (2001). TALplanner: a temporal logic based planner. AI Magazine 22(1): 95–102

    Google Scholar 

  23. Bacchus F and Kabanza F (2000). Using temporal logics to express search control knowledge for planning. Artif Intell 116(1–2): 123–191

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Tate A (1996). Advanced planning technology: technological achievements of the ARPA/Rome laboratory planning initiative. AAAI press, Menlo Park

    Google Scholar 

  25. Steffen B, Margaria T and Braun V (1997). The electronic tool integration platform: concepts and design, special section on the electronic tool integration platform. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 1: 9–30

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Tate A, Drabble B, Dalton J (1994) Reasoning with constraints within O-Plan2. In: Burstein M (ed) Proceedings of the ARPA/Rome laboratory planning initiative workshop, Tucson. Morgan Kaufmann, Palo Alto

  27. Tate A, Dalton J, Levine J (1999) Multi-perspective planning—using domain constraints to support the coordinated development of plans. O-Plan Final Technical Report AFRL-IF-RS-TR-1999–60, April 1999

  28. Tate A (2000) Intelligible AI planning—generating plans represented as a set of constraints. In: Research and development in intelligent systems XVII, Proceedings of ES2000, the twentieth British Computer Society Special Group on expert systems international conference on knowledge based systems and applied artificial intelligence, Cambridge. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 3–16

  29. Wilkins DE (1998). Practical planning: extending the classical AI planning paradigm. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo

    Google Scholar 

  30. Carvalho MT, Casanova MA, Torres F, Santos A (2002) INFOPAE—an emergency plan, deployment system. In: Proceedings of the international pipeline conference, Calgary

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rua Marquês de S. Vicente, 225, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22451-900, RJ, Brazil

    Abilio Fernandes, Antonio L. Furtado, Marco A. Casanova & Karin K. Breitman

  2. Department of Applied Informatics, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, UNIRIO Av. Pasteur 458, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22.290-240, RJ, Brazil

    Angelo E. M. Ciarlini

  3. Computer Science Department, Loyola College in Maryland, 4501 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21210, USA

    Michael G. Hinchey

Authors
  1. Abilio Fernandes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Angelo E. M. Ciarlini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Antonio L. Furtado
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michael G. Hinchey
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Marco A. Casanova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Karin K. Breitman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karin K. Breitman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fernandes, A., Ciarlini, A.E.M., Furtado, A.L. et al. Adding flexibility to workflows through incremental planning. Innovations Syst Softw Eng 3, 291–302 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-007-0035-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-007-0035-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation