An ontological model for workflow management

This thesis proposes a theory-based workflow model. It reviews workflow management basic concepts and discusses workflow generic constructs. It uses BWW Ontology as theoretical foundation and introduces an ontological process model. It derives a set of construct mapping rules that map ontological constructs to workflow management constructs, by extending PMLBWWP construct mapping rules which lead to the ontological workflow model by incorporating the concept of a controller and ontological analysis of workflow management using BWW process modeling. The model focuses on tasks, events and exceptions. An ontological workflow model algorithm provides a procedure on how to transform a process model into a workflow model by investigating each task and each event following a recursive procedure. An example is used to illustrate the way in which the algorithm can be applied. Finally, the thesis examines the contributions and limitations of the research work, and provides suggestions for nature research.