Petri-net-based business process modeling for virtual enterprises

The paper presents our studies on Petri net based business process modeling for virtual enterprises. A virtual enterprise (VE) is a temporary alliance of member enterprises. Generally, a business process consists of a series of logically interrelated activities, to which appropriate resources will be assigned. In the virtual enterprise, both the activities and the resources are in multiple member enterprises, while collaborations exist among these distributed activities and resource sharing is often required. Thus, the modeling of business processes in virtual enterprises is challenging work. Based on Petri nets, the paper proposes a business process modeling method for virtual enterprises, which focuses on the two basic elements of the business process: activities and resources, while addressing their properties of distribution and collaboration particular to virtual enterprises.