1998/02/01 by Wil M. P. van der Aalst, W. M. P. VAN DER AALST · 7 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Computer Science · Engineering · #Business Process Modeling and Analysis #Business process #Computer science #Correctness #Database #Distributed computing #Engineering #Petri Nets in System Modeling #Petri net #Process architecture #Programming language #Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services #Software engineering #Windows Workflow Foundation #Work in process #Workflow #Workflow engine #Workflow management system #Workflow technology #XPDL
paper · doi:10.1142/s0218126698000043
crossref issued 1998/02/01 · crossref published 1998/02/01 · crossref published-print 1998/02/01 · openalex publication_date 1998/02/01 · crossref created 2003/05/27 · crossref published-online 2011/11/21 · crossref deposited 2019/08/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Workflow management promises a new solution to an age-old problem: controlling, monitoring, optimizing and supporting business processes. What is new about workflow management is the explicit representation of the business process logic which allows for computerized support. This paper discusses the use of Petri nets in the context of workflow management. Petri nets are an established tool for modeling and analyzing processes. On the one hand, Petri nets can be used as a design language for the specification of complex workflows. On the other hand, Petri net theory provides for powerful analysis techniques which can be used to verify the correctness of workflow procedures. This paper introduces workflow management as an application domain for Petri nets, presents state-of-the-art results with respect to the verification of workflows, and highlights some Petri-net-based workflow tools.