Article ID: | iaor2008237 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 42 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 844 |
End Page Number: | 858 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2006 |
Journal: | Decision Support Systems |
Authors: | Yen John, Kumar Akhil, Sun Shuang |
Keywords: | artificial intelligence: decision support |
This paper describes the concept of workflow merge and methods for merging business processes. We grouped merges in four categories according to the type of merge: sequential, parallel, conditional, and iterative, and describe the corresponding algorithms for performing these operations. We give results that allow us to determine whether a merge operation is sound. It is shown that to avoid invalid merges, one should choose merge points between which a sub-workflow, called a merge region, is well structured. These findings can provide useful guidance for future workflow merge research. We also raise issues of more complex merge problems, such as merge conflicts, semantic ambiguities and workflow splits.