Soundness preservation in composed logical time workflow nets

Abstract

An interorganisational logical time workflow net is formed by composing multiple logical time workflow nets via interface data places. However, even though each logical time workflow net is sound, the soundness of the composed one is indeterminate. This article addresses the issues related to soundness preservation when logical time workflow nets are composed. First, the reasons that the composed interorganisational logical time workflow net does not preserve soundness are discussed. Second, because the soundness is hard to be decided, an important class of interorganisational logical time workflow nets is put forward and the conditions to preserve soundness are proposed. The results can be used by the designers of cooperative workflows because the method in this article can reduce the analysis complexity based on the static structure of interorganisational logical time workflow nets. Next, an example of the online sale system is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Furthermore, the logical expressions attached to logical input transitions are also studied to prove soundness preservation, and a decision condition is given for interorganisational logical time workflow nets with restricted logical input expressions.