An Integrated Approach for Flexible Work

Diierent workkow modeling methods normally emphasize diierent aspects in business process, such as activity-based method emphasizes the activity and the way to fullll the activity; while the communication-based method emphasizes the communication between the customer and the supplier. Existing workkow modeling approaches are innexible and ineeective in modeling real life business tasks. To overcome this predicament, we propose a new workkow model (namely, the Multi-Agent Workkow Model, MAWM). The model starts from our business process perspective about labor division and cooperation. It integrates the methodolody of multi-agent systems in artiicial intelligence. Three sub-models are included in MAWM. In addition to using a process sub-model to model the behavior and activities in a business process, two sub-models are used to model the organizational objects and data objects manipulated in the business process. Activity-based and communication-based methods are integrated to form the process sub-model. They are useful for modeling diierent actions in the business process.