Performance analysis is one of the most important aspects in workflow management system. In this paper, we propose the stochastic
Petri nets workflow model (WF-SPN), which is the extension of WF-net. Based on our model, we give four performance equivalent
formulae for four basic routing pattern of workflow system. Then, we put forward an approximate performance analysis method
on the base of our performance equivalent formulae. An example illustrates our method can solve real-world problems efficiently.
Keywords Workflow management systems - Stochastic Petri nets - Performance equivalence - Performance analysis
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.90104002 and 60173012), the Projects of
Development Plan of the State Key Fundamental Research (No.G1999032707) and the Projects of Development Plan of the State
High Technology Research (No. 2001AA112080).