Workflow process modelling and resource allocation based on polychromatic sets theory

Abstract

In workflow management, studying the relationship between workflow process activities and resource allocation is one of the interesting research topics. Polychromatic sets theory (PST) is a relatively new mathematical theory which is especially suitable for treating such problems. Based on PST, this paper proposes a framework of workflow process modelling and resource allocation. As the theoretical foundation, polychromatic sets (PS), polychromatic graph (PG) and isolation operation (IO) of the PS are introduced. Special net structure (SNS), a special PG with colourless nodes and concolourous edges, is also introduced, and a new workflow process model and its verification algorithm are presented. Furthermore, a workflow resource model based on the entity of PS is developed. Based on IO of PS, the allocation mechanism that considers workflow process and workflow resource is proposed. Finally, a case study is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the above-mentioned theory and method.

Keywords:

• workflow
• process model
• resource model
• polychromatic sets
• polychromatic graph
• special net structure
• hash table
• isolation operation
• verification algorithm

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60903124), Specialized Research Fund for the Doctorial Program of Higher Education of China (Grant No. 20096118120003), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 20100480080), Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province for Young Star in Science & Technology (Grant No. 2012KJXX-34) and the Scientific Research Plan of Shannxi Provincial Education Department (Grant No. 12JK0659). The authors are grateful to Russian scholar Professor V.V. Pavlov for his original proposal of the polychromatic sets theory. The paper is also intended to the memory of Professor Zongbin Li for his contribution to the polychromatic sets theory.