InDiA: a framework for workflow interoperability support by means of multi-agent systems
Inter-organisational business processes are by no means rare. On the contrary, a business can only thrive if it cooperates with other businesses, like service providers, wholesalers, shipping companies, insurances, banks, etc. However, there is a major barrier here for automating such processes: the IT infrastructure of the trading partners, or more specifically their variety and independence. Owing to these problems, even if both organisations have automated support for their parts of the whole inter-organisational process, the activities responsible for cross-organisational messaging or document passing are often done manually by post or email. This paper concentrates on the problem of providing support for workflow interoperability, which would allow for linking business partners without the necessity of a major redesign of their workflows. A framework for interoperability between heterogeneous workflow systems is presented, which uses a layer of agents to enforce the correct execution of coordination dialogues between the business partners. Further, the framework is discussed and conclusions are given.
workflow interoperability agents dialogue