Towards Dynamic Workflow Support for Crisis Management

Current process support technology for crisis management is often limited to either sharing of information or hard-coded process support through dedicated systems. Workflow management systems have the potential to improve crisis response operations by automating coordination aspects. Unfortunately most contemporary systems can only support static workflows, hence yielding inflexible support systems. Recent work on the use of functional programming techniques for workflow modeling has led to the development of the iTask system. It uses function combination to model dynamic data-driven processes and generates executable workflow support systems. Because of its focus on dynamic processes it appears promising for development of flexible crisis response systems. In this paper we present an initial discussion of the potential of the iTask system for crisis management applications. We give an overview of the iTask system, and discuss to what extent it meets the requirements of the crisis management domain.