Market-based Workflow Management for Supply Chains of Services

This paper proposes the application of market-based workflow management for enabling a new form of relationship between customer and suppliers of services. This form is more flexible than the usual long-term fixed relationship with single partners. It allows customers to coordinate their processes with the services operated by the suppliers while still benefiting from a market competition enhanced with more customers and suppliers. A software system is being prototyped to demonstrate the concepts. It consists of a set of workflow systems and an automated trader system. The workflow systems reside in different organizations and the trader system acts as an intermediary among the customers and suppliers of services, maintaining information about their offers and requests. The traded services are treated as workflows. An illustration is given in the domain of logistics, where a company outsources part of a transportation process to external suppliers of the required services.