A Multi-Agent Architecture for Business Process Management Adapts to Unreliable Performance

Many of the issues in managing complex business processes are shared by the management of industry, manufacturing processes. Both operate in open, dynamic environments, and both have to cope with continually changing performance. Two issues are the choice of the basic software architecture to manage the processes and the adaptivity mechanism that enables that architecture to operate well when performance of the system is continually changing. The issues in choosing a software architecture for managing business and manufacturing processes are similar. Many of the issues in adapting a business process management system to changing performance are common to manufacturing processes, although there are some unique issues for complex business processes. Those common issues only are described, and an approach to dealing with them is discussed. The system has been trialed on emergent process management in a university administrative context.