Towards evolutionary and adaptive workflow systems-infrastructure support based on Higher-Order Object Nets and CORBA

Issues of workflow systems adaptability and evolution capability are discussed from two perspectives, namely design and evolution of workflow systems from a continuous software engineering perspective as well as redesign and runtime on-the-fly modifications of workflow models from an application perspective. Special attention is paid to a suitable infrastructure support for designing more configurable and adaptive workflow systems. A new workflow language, called Higher-Order Object Nets (HOON), is introduced. The intended uses of HOON are, on one side, to directly describe real-world business processes, and on the other side, to serve as a build-time composition model and a run-time overall control skeleton of the underlying software components that support individual business activities. On the basis of HOON and CORBA, a layered, framework-based and generic system architecture is presented.