Termination handling in inter-organisational workflows - An exception management approach

Abstract

The co-ordination of business processes across organisational boundaries requires assigning responsibility for costs to the involved business partners, in particular in case of termination of a sub process that is outsourced to another organisation. The circumstances in which business partners can terminate ongoing prossesses and the assignment of costs are usually specified in a contract. It defines who has to pay which amount in specific situations. In many organisations Workflow Management Systems (WfMS) are used to enact business processes, but current WfMS do not have means to specify and apply rules that define responsibility for costs or terms of termination. If WfMSs of outsourcing partners should be connected cost assignment and supervision has to be done manually. This paper proposes a formal approach to extend WfMSs by a framework for termination management and cost assignment. Such a mechanism reduces monitoring effort in cross-organisational workflow management.