The Method Research Of Modeling And Analysis-Evaluation For The Petri Nets-Based Workflow Model

Workflow Management is widely used in many application areas. Modeling is the base topic of workflow research. The thesis mainly studies a methodology for constructing a workflow model and analyzing methods of workflow model. The thesis studies meta-model of workflow, analyzes four major perspectives (i.e., views) that logically combine to describe a workflow model. These are organizational view, resource view, process view and information view. Then a methodology about how to use Petri Nets to define and execute workflow model based on the four views is presented. A hierarchical Petri net-based approach for complicated workflow model design and associated rules are described. Concept of region is discussed and dynamic workflow modeling is analyzed with the definition of regions. From verification of soundness and performance evaluation the Petri net-based workflow model is analyzed. In order to verify the soundness of simple Petri net-workflow model, an arithmetic based on reachable tree is given. By four Petri reduction rules, soundness of hierarchical workflow model is proved too. Time performance and utilized resource performance are analyzed by using simulation method so that business process can be improved and optimized. In addition, the design of the workflow modeling tool named VisualPN is described. At the end of this paper, a Petri net-based workflow model for a real business process is constructed and analyzed under the above-mentioned methods.