Extend Workflow Model to Manage the Process Branches in Planning and Scheduling

The integration of planning and scheduling (P&S) and workflow is a significant challenge for knowledge acquisition in planning and scheduling. There has been work on the definition of workflow that allows non-expert entering knowledge on the organization process to be used in planning and scheduling. Since the definition of workflow is usually static and rigid, it is difficult to represent the process branches and constraints. Furthermore, workflow complexity may grow exponentially if all the process branches are compiled into the definition beforehand. In order to represent the branches and reduce the complexity, an extended workflow model is proposed in this paper. This model manages process branches in a dynamic way and represents various constraints, including temporal and logical constrains between activities in different branches. We also propose a graphic modeling tool. It helps users to modeling and acquiring knowledge conveniently.