Extended event–condition–action rules and fuzzy Petri nets based exception handling for workflow management

Exception handling plays a key role in dynamic workflow management that enables streamlined business processes. Handling application-specific exceptions is a knowledge-intensive process involving different decision-making strategies and a variety of knowledge, especially much fuzzy knowledge. Current efforts in workflow exception management are not adequate to support the knowledge-based exception handling. This paper proposes a hybrid exception handling approach based on two extended knowledge models, i.e., generalized fuzzy event–condition–action (GFECA) rule and typed fuzzy Petri net extended by process knowledge (TFPN-PK). The approach realizes integrated representation and reasoning of fuzzy and non-fuzzy knowledge as well as specific application domain knowledge and workflow process knowledge. In addition, it supports two handling strategies, i.e., direct decision and analysis-based decision, during exception management. The approach fills in the gaps in existing related researches, i.e., only providing the capability of direct exception handling and neglecting fuzzy knowledge. Based on TFPN-PK, a weighted fuzzy reasoning algorithm is designed to address the reasoning problem of uncertain goal propositions and known goal concepts by combining forward reasoning with backward reasoning and therefore to facilitate cause analysis and handling of workflow exceptions. A prototype system is developed to implement the proposed approach.

Research highlights
► We propose a workflow exception handling approach based on GFECA rule and TFPN-PK.
► It realizes integrated representation and reasoning of fuzzy and non-fuzzy knowledge.
► It supports not only direct exception handling but analysis-based exception handling.
► TFPN-PK can model and integrate specific domain knowledge and process knowledge.
► TFPN-PK-WFRA enables the reasoning of uncertain goal propositions with known concept.