A Service-based Control Engine for the Distributed Execution of Petri Nets and its Application to Workflow Management Systems

This paper proposes PN-Engine, an original service-based control engine for the distributed execution of systems formalized by Petri nets. Net execution is achieved by registering listeners to transitions and by triggering activities or jobs on transition firings. A key feature of PN-Engine is the absence of a centralized entity which controls net evolution. All of this naturally allows an exploitation of concurrency and nondeterminism aspects typical of Petri net models. The applicability of PNEngine is demonstrated in the domain of Workflow Management Systems. In particular, the paper describes a developed case study relevant to the management of patient flows in a hospital context.