A Workflow System through Cooperating Agents for Control and Document Flow over the Internet

Abstract

In this paper we describe an architecture that provides for automating and monitoring the flow of control and document over the Internet among different organizations, thereby creating a platform necessary to describe higher order processes involving several organizations and companies. The higher order process is designed through a graphical user interface and is executed through cooperating agents that are automatically initialized at each site that the process executes. Agents handle the activities at their site, provide for coordination with other agents in the system by routing the documents in electronic form according to the process description. The system is capable of activating external applications (which may be inside the company firewall) when necessary, keeping track of process information, and providing for the security and authentication of documents as well as comprehensive monitoring facilities. The architecture is general enough to be applied to any business practice where data flow and invocation of activities among different industries and cooperations follow a pattern that can be described through a process definition, however since the project is on maritime industry, some of the graphical user interfaces are customized accordingly. The system is fully operational for industrial use.

This work is being supported by the European Commission Project Number: INCODC 97-2496 MARIFlow, by the Middle East Technical University Project Number: AFP-97-07-02-08, and by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, Project Number:197E038