Multi-agent-based Business Process Co-simulation Study

Enterprise process engineering is the development and enactment of enterprise process with the methodology of system engineering. It includes four phrases: process definition, simulation, optimization and enactment. Wrokflow technique is a kind of supporting technique for enterprise process engineering. Workflow simulation, as a key method to analyze workflow model dynamically, is recommended to be performed before the deployment of workflow model. Simulation provides the decision foundation for Business Process Reengineering (BPR). The simulation of workflow model has already been a research focus.Multi-agent technique is used to address the issues of complex control and solution through intelligent behaviors such as cooperation, competition, coordination in a set of autonomous agents under a dynamic distribution-oriented open environment. These features of multi-agent make them suitable to represent the entities in enterprise environment. Compared to the conventional simulation methodology, multi-agent technique is more natural to build a simulation framework for enterprise process model.The thesis first summarizes the corresponding concepts of process engineering and workflow, with a detailed presentation of workflow modeling taxology and workflow simulation method based on disperse simulation methodology. Agent theory, multi-agent system and MAS-...