An agent for web-based process management

A web-based process management system retains all relevant knowledge within virtual web documents. A generic process agent is used to build a web-based business process management system. The process agent architecture is a three-layer BDI, hybrid architecture. The agents in this system attempt to improve performance by observing the system environment. The performance is defined in therms of estimates of the values of particular parameters. These estimates are accepted as long as they are statistically stable. If variations in these estimates lie outside specified limits then the system attempts to deduce why this is so. If it is unable to deduce a reason then it asks for one. If a reason for an unexpected measurement is quantifiable then that reason is used to revise subsequent measurements while that reason remains significant. The system has been trialed in a university administrative context.