Agent-Based Systems in The Business Context

AAAI-99 Workshop

July, 19 1999, Orlando, Florida, USA.

Workshop Objectives | Program | Workshop Committee | AAAI-99 Conference

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

This workshop will bring together key researchers in the areas of AI agents, planning, and scheduling with those in workflow management. The aim is to start a dialogue between these groups on how AI techniques can support real-world business processes.

Workflow Management Systems are integrated software tools for supporting the modeling, analysis, and enactment of business processes. The development of this technology has been driven by the move to process-oriented management in the '90s via initiatives like "Continuous Business Process Improvement'' and "Business Process Re-engineering.'' The market for workflow management software grew from around $100 million in 1991 to $2.5 billion in 1996. From a research perspective, DARPA has identified workflow as one of its key "must have" technologies and is investing heavily in developing the next-generation workflow systems for the military. However, the impact of such systems will go well beyond the military and will be of great interest to the general business community.

The thesis underlying this workshop proposal is that the AI community could be leveraged to realize a vision for dynamic process management, at both the modeling and technological levels. The focus of this workshop will be on the role that technologies emerging from both US and international research programs can play in the construction of workflow engines that manage complex processes, while remaining robust, reactive, and adaptive in the face of environmental changes.

PROGRAM

08:45 - Arrival and Coffee

09:00 - Welcome

INVITED PAPER SESSION - BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE

09:20 - Workflow Management form a Scheduling Perspective, Steve Smith, David Hildrum and Marcel Becker.
09:40 - Realizing Real Commercial Benefit from Workflow: A Report from the Trenches, Terri Lydiard, Peter Jarvis, and Brian Drabble.
10:00 - Technologies for Intelligent Workflows: Experiences and Lessons, B.R. Odgers, J.W. Shepardson, et al.

10:20 - 10:40 Coffee

FIRST PAPER SESSION

10:40 - At the Boundary or Workflow and AI, Karen Myers and Pauline Berry.
11:00 - Exploiting AI Technologies to Realise Adaptive Workflow Systems, Peter Jarvis, et al.
11:20 - Component Based Task Models for Agent Coordination, Brian Drabble.
11:40 - From Formal Workflow Models to Intelligent Agents Markus Hannebauer.
12:00 - Intelligent Agent-Oriented Systems for Integrated, Online Planning, Scheduling and Control of Manufacturing and Distribution Systems, Kutluhan Erol and Bob Kohout
12:15 - Statement of Interest, Markus Zanker.

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch

SECOND PAPER SESSION

13:30 - An Agent Federation for Supply Chain Integration, Mark E. Nissen.
13:50 - A Workflow Management System for Coordinating Distributed Information-Based Business Processes, Diogo Ferreira, and Pinto Ferreira.
14:10 - Agent Computing, KB For Intelligent Forecasting and Model Discovery for Knowledge Management, Cyrus F. Nourani.
14:30 - OP3: Supporting the Planning Process using Open Planning Process Panels, Austin Tate, John Levine, Jeff Dalton and Stuart Aitken.

14:50 - 15:10 Coffee

RESEARCH ROAD MAP FORMULATION

15:10 - 17:00 Road Map Formulation.

CLOSE AND ARRANGEMENTS FOR EVENING MEAL

17:00 - 17:30.

WORKSHOP COMMITTEE

Workshop co-chairs:

• Dr. Pauline Berry, AI Center, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025. E-mail: berry@ai.sri.com.
• Dr. Brian Drabble, Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory, 1269 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-2189, USA. E-mail: drabble@cirl.uoregon.edu.
• Dr. Karen L. Myers, AI Center SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave. Menlo Park, CA 94025. E-mail: myers@ai.sri.com.
• Dr. Peter Jarvis, AI Applications Institute, Division of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1HN, UK. E-mail: Peter.Jarvis@aiai.ed.ac.uk

Workshop Program Committee:

• Ruth Aylett, The Information Technology Institute, Salford University, UK. E-Mail: R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk.
• Abraham Bernstein, Sloan School of Management, MIT, USA. E-Mail: avi@mit.edu.
• Paul Chung, Chemical Engineering Department, Loughborough University, UK. E-Mail: P.W.H.Chung@lboro.ac.uk.
• Barbara Dellen, Expert Systems Group, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. E-Mail: Dellen@informatik.uni-kl.de.
• Sigrid Goldmann Expert Systems Group, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. E-Mail: Sigig@informatik.uni-kl.de.
• Marie desJardins, SRI International, USA
• Tom Garvey, SRI International, USA,
• Mark Klein, Center for Coordination Science, MIT, USA.E-Mail: Email: m_klein@mit.edu.
• Terri Lydiard, IBM, Global Services, UK.
• Azad Madni, Intelligent Systems Technology, Inc, USA.
• Ann Macintosh, Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, Division of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, UK.E-Mail: Ann.Macintosh@aiai.ed.ac.uk.
• Jonathan Moore, Chemical Engineering Department, Loughborough University, UK. E-Mail: J.P.Moore@lboro.ac.uk.
• Charles Petrie, Center for Design Research, Stanford University, USA. E-Mail: Petrie@stanford.edu.
• Jussi Stader, Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, Division of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, UK. E-Mail: Jussi.Stader@aiai.ed.ac.uk.
• Austin Tate, Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, Division of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, UK. E-Mail: A.Tate@ed.ac.uk

AAAI-99 Conference Details

This workshop will be held as part of the Sixteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the Eleventh Innovative Applications of AI Conference (AAAI-99) in Orlando, Florida, USA, during late July 1999. Please see the conference site for more information.

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