Workflow modeling: a structured approach

The workflow technology has been an active area of research for the past few years. The conceptual modeling of workflow is the first, and arguably the most important, step towards applying this technology. A well defined, error-free workflow model leads to the development of an effective workflow application. So, how to ensure the correctness and consistency of a workflow model is a core issue in workflow modeling. We have adopted a structured approach to workflow modeling, much like the way modern structured programming languages work, to avoid a great variety of modeling errors. The motivation, idea and some correctness and expressiveness issues are all covered in this paper.