Automatic workflow generation

Abstract

As the number and diversity of computer-aided VLSI design tools grows, there is an increasing interest in workflow management. In this paper we describe an enhancement to the task schema approach to workj5?ow management that allows for the automatic generation of workjlows. Such a capability can significantly enhance designer productivity. It has been implemented in the Dedal program.As the number and diversity of computer-aided design tools used by VLSI circuit designers continues to grow, there is an increasing need for tools that can help manage the design process. One such class of tools is known as workflow managers which help to organize, monitor, and automate complex processes. Through the use of wori$ow management, also known as task management, designers are freed up to think in terms of toolindependent procedures rather than in terms of specific application programs and data files.Most approaches to task management are based on flow descriptions that must be prepared in advance thereby making them somewhat inflexible. Examples of such approaches are those based on flow maps to describe design tasks [2-41 and those that use extension languages to describe tasks [5,, an alternate approach to task management was described. This approach, embodied in the Hercules Task Manager, employs the task schema to specify the rules by which tools and data may be combined to create a flow. It maintains the advantages of previous approaches while giving the designer maximal control over the design A simple design task, which can be thought of as an elementary design function, consists of a target entity, which must be simple, and one or more input entities, which may be either simple or compound. The use of a compound entity as an input means that any of simple entities that constitute the compound entity can be used as inputs to the design task. 1040-8186-7573-X/96 $5.00 0 1996 IEEE

TxFlowGen: Generation of Failure Atomic transactional workflows for B2B applications

“…Hence, it is important to identify FARs of a transactional workflow, based on the transactional dependencies. Several commercial products [8,10,12] that focus on the management of workflow fail to model the reliability aspect in business process coordination which is very important from the customer perspective. Moreover, manual generation of FARs from complex workflows with larger number of activities is tedious.…”

“…Shepelev and Director [8] generated workflows based on the expanded task schema graph. By using such graphs, chains are found and transformed into workflow.…”

Automated generation of resource configurations through policies

“…-11 - In the context of VLSI CAD design [25], Constraint satisfaction technique has been used to create automated workflows. The author claims to have enhanced designer productivity in the process.…”

OPERAS': Generating and improving network operational workflows on-the-fly

“…Workflow management has been studied in various areas, such as electrical component design [4] and Web systems [5] in addition to the field of network operation. In these areas of study, one of the key issues has been the automatic generation of the workflow on-the-fly to adjust to various wide-ranging activities and behaviors [6].…”