A pattern based approach to workflow structure analysis

Reference workflow model are a popular tool for business process reengineering (BPR). A good reference workflow model should not contain structural problems, e.g. deadlock or unfinished instances. Therefore, the structure of the reference workflow model should be verified to effectively facilitate BPR projects and reduce the errors of workflow system implementation. This work presents a novel pattern-based Petri Net (PN) structural analytical approach. Several workflow patterns and their PN-based identification algorithms are also developed. An approach to transform a PN model into a pattern-based process diagram (PBPD) is specified. Via the PBPD, several structure-related flaws, such as deadlock and improper nesting, are analyzed using a Split-Join Routing Table (SJRT). The PBPD can also reduce the complexity of a PN model and enhance the analytical efficiency. Finally, an industrial reference model is used as an empirical case to verify the proposed approach.