The SWORDIES project is a research and development project which investigates the systematic development of workflow systems with focus on distribution and heterogeneity issues. SWORDIES considers the following tasks in modelling and designing workflow systems (WS):

• analysis of real-world business processes and organizational structures,
• development of a conceptual business process metamodel,
• integration of the business process metamodel in a software architecture model.

These tasks are accomplished by different abstraction layers of the software organization in SWORDIES-based workflow systems:

• The top (or application) layer, also called application level, is formed by business applications which have to be modelled and implemented.
• The next lower conceptual layer includes a conceptual business process metamodel which provides modelling abstractions for all relevant aspects gained from the analysis done in the layer above. This layer is developed by the University of Bern.
• The next lower logical comprises the software architecture of WS. A component-based software architectural metamodel developed by the University of Zurich provides the appropriate abstractions and specification mechanisms.
• The bottom layer consists of an event-based workflow execution platform developed by the University of Zurich.

D. Tombros, A. Geppert, K.R.Dittrich:
Semantics of Reactive Components in Event-Driven Workflow Execution.
SWORDIES Report 5, June 1997 (published in Proc. of the 9th Intl. Conf. on Advanced Information Systems, Barcelona, Spain, June 1997)

A. Geppert, D. Tombros:
Event-based Distributed Workflow Execution with EVE.
SWORDIES Report 17, September 1998 (published in N. Davies, K. Raymond, J. Seitz (eds.), Proceedings IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing Middleware 98. Springer 1998.

Weitere Informationen