Workflow support for failure management in federated organizations

Failure management for complex products (such as production machinery) exemplifies a class of reactive workflow management tasks for which current WFMS offer few solutions. This class is characterized by great variation of tasks and cooperation patterns, the need to bring rich context knowledge to many different kinds of workplaces, and the need to interlink effective workflow execution with continuous organizational learning. In the German FOQUS project, we have prototyped and evaluated a WFMS architecture which addresses these problems through (a) the encapsulation of problem context in electronic circulation folders; (b) a semantic trading mechanism managing the flow of such folders in a highly flexible manner; (c) a concept for process-integrated workplaces in which the necessary information is made effectively available in the usual working environment of the different kinds of users; (d) metamodeling techniques to support change in this environment