Agent-based integration of web services with workflow management systems

Rapid changes in the business environment call for more flexible and adaptive workflow systems. Researchers have proposed that Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) comprising multiple agents can provide these capabilities. We have developed a multi-agent based workflow system, JBees, which supports distributed process models and the adaptability of executing processes. Modern workflow systems should also have the flexibility to integrate available web services as they are updated. In this paper we discuss how our agent-based architecture can be used to bind and access web services in the context of executing a workflow process model. We use an example from the diamond processing industry to show how our agent architecture can be used to integrate web services with WfMSs.UnpublishedApache Axis Toolkit . http://ws.apache.org/axis/. Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS). http://www.ebpml.org/bpel4ws.htm. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents . http://www.fipa.org. Paul Buhler and José M. Vidal. Enacting BPEL4WS specified workflows with multiagent systems. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Web Services and Agent-Based Engineering, 2004. Paul Buhler and José M. Vidal. Integrating agent services into BPEL4WS defined workflows. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Web-Oriented Software Technologies, 2004. Q. Chen, M. Hsu, U. Dayal, and M.L. Griss. Multi-agent cooperation, dynamic workflow and XML for e-commerce automation. In fourth international conference on Autonomous agents, Barcelona, Spain, 2000. Martin Fleurke. JBees, an adaptive workflow management system - an approach based on petri nets and agents. Master’s thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands, 2004. Martin Fleurke, Lars Ehrler, and Maryam Purvis. JBees - an adaptive and distributed framework for workflow systems. In Workshop on Collaboration Agents: Autonomous Agents for Collaborative Environments (COLA), Halifax, Canada, pages 69–76, 2003. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents. Fipa communicative act library - specification. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00037/, 2002. N.R. Jennings, P. Faratin, T.J. Norman, P. O’Brien, and B. Odgers. Autonomous Agents for Business Process Management . Int. Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence, 14(2):145–189, 2000. K. Jensen. Coloured Petri Nets - Basic Concepts, Analysis Methods and Practical Use, Volume 1: Basic Concepts. EATCS Monographs on Theoretical Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, 1992. G. Joeris. Decentralized and Flexible Workflow Enactment Based on Task Coordination Agents . In 2nd Int’l. Bi-Conference Workshop on Agent-Oriented Information Systems (AOIS 2000 @ CAiSE*00), Stockholm, Sweden, pages 41–62. iCue Publishing, Berlin, Germany, 2000. S. Meilin, Y. Guangxin, X. Yong, and W Shangguang. Workflow Management Systems: A Survey. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Communication Technology, cscw.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/cscwpapers/ygxin/WfMSSurvey.pdf, 1998. Tadao Murata. Petri nets: Properties, analysis and applications. Proceedings of the IEEE, 77(4):541–580, April 1989. M.E. Nissen. Supply Chain Process and Agent Design for E-Commerce . In 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2000. Mariusz Nowostawski. JFern - Java-based Petri Net framework . http://sourceforge.net/projects/jfern/, 2003. Martin K. Purvis, Stephen Cranefield, Mariusz Nowostawski, and Dan Carter. Opal: A Multi-Level Infrastructure for Agent-Oriented Software Development. The information science discussion paper series no 2002/01, Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2002. J.W. Shepherdson, S.G. Thompson, and B. Odgers. Cross Organisational Workflow Coordinated by Software Agents. In CEUR Workshop Proceedings No 17. Cross-Organisational Workflow Management and Coordination, San Francisco, USA, 1998. H. Stormer. AWA - A flexible Agent-Workflow System . In Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches to B2B at the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AGENTS 2001), Montral, Canada, 2001. W.M.P van der Aalst and K. van Hee. Workflow Management: Models, Methods, and Systems . MIT Press, 2002. José M. Vidal, Paul Buhler, and Christian Stahl. Multiagent systems with workflows. IEEE Internet Computing, 8(1):76–82, January/February 2004. M. Wang and H. Wang. Intelligent Agent Supported Flexible Workflow Monitoring System . In Advanced Information Systems Engineering: 14th International Conference, CAiSE 2002, Toronto, Canada, 2002. X and Y. A collaborative multi-agent based workflow system. In Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES), pages 1187–1193. Springer, 2004. X, Y, and Z. Monitoring and controlling of a workflow management system. In In Proc. Australasian Workshop on Data Mining and Web Intelligence (DMWI2004), pages 127–132, 2004