Workflow Interoperability Model Program

Workflow automation plays an important role in reducing costs and improving production efficiency in enterprises. Thus, based on this technology, Workflow Management System has become a basic platform which provides support to the collaborative work and the realization of workflow automation. Then how to make several procedures run cooperatively in the whole workflow system with high efficiency poses significant importance on interoperability.In the process of the execution of workflow, some activities which are in no need of personnel's participation would start some automated or half-automated applications. Generally speaking, these applications can be divided into two classes: one is the able applications, which is integrated tightly in WfMS and invocated and controlled totally by workflow engineer;the other is the able applications invocated and controlled by the method of agents. According to these two classes, two interoperability models are designed: namely, the interoperability model based on WEB and the Multi-agent interoperability model based on CORBA. The former adopts normative XML (Wf-XML) to define the manipulation;MIME transfers all kinds of information;through alternation of the application procedure between HOP and IDL-packed server, data transforming middleware based on SOAP can realize the interoperability of distributed workflow engineers. It can provide favorable theoretic support for the expansibility of workflow model and the application of workflow interoperability in the aspects of compatibility, openness, extensibility, etc. The bottom communication mechanism and multi-agent (including application agents and adapter agents) together interoperate all kinds of information by the means of request and responding. Thus, the latter can be realized. This could fundamentally remedy the two deficiencies of architecture availability and loading balance ability, when dealing with tasks of inter-department or inter-enterprise, carving out another way of designing architecture of workflow interoperability.