2017 Volume E100.A Issue 2 Pages 421-426
Workflow nets (WF-nets for short) are a standard way to automate business processes. Well-Structured WF-nets (WS WF-nets for short) are an important subclass of WF-nets because they have a well-balanced capability to expression power and analysis power. In this paper, we revealed structural and behavioral properties of WS WF-nets. Our results on structural properties are: (i) There is no EFC but non-FC WF-net in WS WF-nets; (ii) A WS WF-net is sound iff it is a van Hee et al.'s ST-net. Our results on behavioral properties are: (i) Any WS WF-net is safe; (ii) Any WS WF-net is separable; (iii) A necessary and sufficient condition on reachability of sound WS WF-net (N,[pIk]). Finally we illustrated the usefulness of the proposed properties with an application example of analyzing workflow evolution.