=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-547/paper-78
|storemode=property
|title=Implementation of Multi-Agents System to Control Adaptability in Workflow Environment
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-547/121.pdf
|volume=Vol-547
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ciia/El-KamelFCE09
}}
==Implementation of Multi-Agents System to Control Adaptability in Workflow Environment==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-547/121.pdf
Implementation of Multi-Agents System to Control
Adaptability in Workflow Environment
Hamdane Mohamed El-Kamel1,, Lezzar Fouzi2, Boufenar Chaouki3
, Mili Seif Eddine4
1
Computer Science Department, University of Khenchela,
40000, Khenchela, Algeria
2,4
LIRE Laboratory, University of Constantine,
Route Ain El-Bay Constantine, 25000 Algeria
3
Computer Science Department, Jijel University,
BP 98, Ouled Aissa Jijel, Algeria
1
Hamdane.med@gmail.com, 2,4 fouzaw,seif03051982{@yahoo.fr}
3
boufenar@hotmail.com
Abstract. The workflow process is often executed in a dynamic environment.
This dynamic is classified in several aspects. For this reason, several researches
try to give workflow architectures more adaptability in order to provide his
business process more stability. This paper presented an architecture based
agent to take in charge adaptability in workflow environment. The system
proposed has the possibility to change their behavior according to the situation.
To show the validity and feasibility of this architecture, it has been implement
using Jade platform.
Keywords: Agent, MAS (Multi-Agents System), workflow, adaptability, Jade.
1 Introduction
The appearance of a workflow system in 1995 has lead most companies to integrate
this technology into their infrastructure for the reason of its benefits. The WfMC
defines a workflow as distributed multitask activity, routinized or systematized in
some way, that involves the coordinated execution of human and system tasks,
usually in heterogeneous environments [1]. We can see simply that the workflow is
the automation of the business process1. The environment of the workflow is
characterized by set of aspects as: fort communication, high degrees of coordination,
distributed tasks, dynamic process, influence of the NTIC (New Technology of the
Information and the Communication) …Etc. In environment as this it is necessary to
answer the question “how to take in charge the stability of workflow system?
The management of adaptability in the workflow environment by using the agent2
approach is a candidate solution [2]. So, we can see a workflow environment as a
1 The process is a set a tacks
2
Agent: encapsulated computer system, situated in some environment, and capable of flexible
autonomous action in that environment in order to meet its design objectives [8].
distributed system that is focused on the coordination. This coordination is also based
on a high density of communication. For example: if a customer has lost its credit
card, it is strongly advised that retrieves another in sort time if the bank wants to keep
this client. The treatment of this event (adaptable case) should be automatic after a
louse’s declaration.
The paper is organised as follow. Section 2 reviews some related works on the idea
to taking in charge adaptability in workflow environment. Sections 3 provide short
presentation of our architecture. An implementation prototype is presented in Section
4 and a case study is provided in section 5. Section 6 contains the final remarks and a
summary of the paper.
2 Related Works
Several researches works as [3] [4] [5] try to contribute for the problem of the
integration of adaptability in a workflow system using the agent1 approach. After
student of these architectures, we have concluded that each architecture is
implemented in way to treat one aspect of the adaptability. For example architecture
[3] is designed in a way that gives advantage to the care of adaptation level scheme
workflow. But on other hand, the two other architectures [4] [5] are oriented towards
the management of adaptability in the instances level.
Among the disadvantages of these architectures is which cover only one aspect of
the adaptability. But, we concluded that this concept is located has several levels in an
environment workflow [6]. We note that there is no clear classification of
adaptability’s cases which cause some problems during treatment.
The main drawback of these architectures is that they are trying to achieve support
for adaptability by the idea of specialization agents, i.e. in all the agents of the
architecture goes on sacrificing an agent(s) to achieve adaptability in the workflow
environment [6].
Therefore, our effort will be focused firstly to propose a MAS that model all aspects
of workflow system (as functional, behavioural, organizational, informational,).
Secondly, ensures that this architecture is able to modify these behaviours according
to the situations in order to preserve maximum the stability of workflow process.
There are few research efforts in the direction of integrating the concept of
adaptability in workflow environment. In this work, we present the prototype of
architecture which uses the paradigm MAS to cover adaptability in all levels of
workflow system.
3 The global architecture
In this section we present the great ideas of our architecture. Our step is to propose
firstly a generic strategy for taking in charge adaptability in a workflow system. This
strategy is based in MAS paradigm as we have proved by another work in [6]. In
summary, the strategy proposed defended two levels of adaptability; i.e. global level
and local level. It is implemented in each agent in the form of rules, it east of Fig.1
are stores in a base named “Base Rules for local adaptability” and “Base Rules for
global adaptability”. Its functionality is similar to a football match! The coach
developing a tactical to play and each payer does utmost to follow this tactic. If a
player came out by red card for example, the group should therefore follow their
tactics in adaptable mode.
Fig. 1. Multi-Agent Architecture of workflow system
Communication and negotiation Manager Agent
Execution
Need Actor Agent
Use Human Agent
Hence, in order to provide the proposed architecture by the necessary flexibility, we propose
that each actor Agent provides three missions. Firstly, each agent of this type achieving some
tasks in the workflow process when we call principal role. Secondly, it can guarantee a few
secondary roles in workflow process. Thirdly, he is responsible to managing the adaptability in
his local environment (local adaptability). In architecture like this, modification of the scheme
in local level of an agent actor doesn’t require a broad restructuring of the overall scheme of the
process workflow.
An activity represents a set of roles where an agent can ensure in workflow process (part of
process). I remember that exist tree types of activities: automatic activity, semi-automatic
Activity and manual activity. The agent actor can only execute the automatic and semi-
automatic.
Concerning the role of the manager agent is to make sure adaptability in global level [6]. We
propose the sequence diagram of AUML method [7] to illustrate the functioning of the
architecture Fig 2.
Fig. 2. Example of the Sequence diagram between SMA
4 Realization of the purposed architecture
4.1 Communication in the Agent-based Architecture
The agents need to communicate among these, as well as with the services of their platform or
environment. Several mechanisms of communication are possible: message exchanging and
sending, methods invocation and the use of the ‘blackboard’ mechanism.
Consequently, standardized inter-agent communication languages should be supplied.
KQML (Knowledge Query Management language) [8] was proposed to support inter-agent
communication. This language defines a set of types of messages (called “performatives”) and
rules, which define the suggested behavior for the agents that receive these messages. This
language was developed in ad-hoc way for the requirements of the developers of agent’s
software packages.
The ACL (Agent Communication Language) [9], successor of KQML, supplied a richer
semantics. This language was proposed by FIPA [9], which aims to standardize communication
among agents. ACL is also based on language theory and is close to KQML at the level of the
acts of the language, but not at the semantics level, which underwent a big improvement in
ACL.
In our approach, we use the ACL to formulate messages and the XPDL (Xml
Process Description Language) to describe the continents of messages. The use of
ACL-XPDL in inter-agents communications permits to achieve a first of
interoperability by surpassing the problem of heterogeneous exchanges among the
different actors in the workflow environment.
4.2 The exchanged messages
FIPA [9] supplies a standard syntax for messages. These messages are based on the theory
of the act do speech, which is the result of the linguistic analysis of human communication [9].
The basis of this theory is to produce an action from the language.
In the FIPA-ACL, no specific language for the description of the contents of messages is
imposed. Several languages can be used for the description of the continents of the exchanged
message such as KIF (Knowledge Interchange Format), Semantic language (SL), prologue and
XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language)
XPDL (based in XML language) will be used firstly for the description of workflow
process because is one of the recommendation of WFMC [10]. Secondly this language is used
for the specification and interpretation of the contents of messages exchanged among agents
from the workflow environment. So, the messages exchanged in our architecture are described
in FIPA-ACL/XPDL.
The use for XPDL for the contents of communications among agents gives the possibility
to display of messages in a Web browser and facilitates the integration with others web-based
applications.
The following example illustrates interaction between the Manager Agent and an Actor
Agent1, Agent Actor2 during a phase of taking in charge of adaptability.
The Manager Agent announces the sub-goal “Realization of task t1” as followings:
(cfp
:sender Agent_Manager
:receiver Agent_Actor1,Agent_Actor2
:language XPDL
:protocol fipa-contract-net
:content (
Cotisation==false
Envoyer lettre de refus au
client
Sélection un expert
Envoyer lettre de
mission
48 heure
:reply-with propose)
Based on the Contract-Net Protocol [5] the Manager agent, which is the initiator of the
workflow process, asks various potential agents to tender their offers, i.e., to give the necessary
information concerning their activities (role, resource, time…) in order that the manager Agent
checks them.
Fig. 3 illustrates the process of communication between the Manager agent and an Agent
actor. The communication process is support by "Communication component" [6] module in
the manager agent. The FIPA-ACL message are formulated and sent by the communication
module of the Manager agent and actor’s agents.
Fig. 3. Flux of communication between Manager Agent and Actor Agent 1
Ordinary situation of process communication
Process of communication in adaptability situation
5 Case study and simulation
We have simulated our approach in the domain of automobile insurance (see Fig. 4). In this
case study; we have to approach the problem of the coordination and so the communication
during the execution of the workflow process in order to take in charge adaptability if a change
appear.
Fig. 4 process workflow of automobile insurance agency
5.1 General description of the workflow process
From the implementation viewpoint; we would adopt the use for an agent-based
platform to implement the different agents and concepts of our architecture. Several
platforms are supplied as software package; such as JADE [11]; ZEUS [12]; for the
cognitive agents or SWARMW [13] for the reactive agents.
For modelling the workflow process of automobile insurance agency we have used
the language XPDL because the WfMC classify it as a standard language for
description the business process [10]. We have user the toolset of "Together workflow
server community" [14] to model this process workflow:
………
Cotisation==false
Envoyer lettre de refus
au client
Sélection un expert
Envoyer lettre de
mission
48 heure
………
5.2 Using Jade to implement MAS in the workflow environment
JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment framework) is the multi-agent platform; developed in Java by
CSELT (Research Graouppo Telecom, Italy). It provides a FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent
Physical Agents) compliant environment and execution of MAS [11].
JADE includes two basic constituents: an agent platform and software package for the
development of agents in Java. It supplies several facilities, among them, we can mention the
following [11]:
- A distributed agent platform: the agent platform can be spilt among several hosts
(provided they can de connected via RMI). Only one Java [15] application, and therefore
only one Java Virtual Machine is executes on each host.
Agents are implemented as Java threads and live within Agent containers that provide
the run-time support to the agent execution.
- An efficient transport of ACL message inside the same agent platform. In fact,
messages are transferred encoded as Java objects; rather than strings. When crossing
platform boundaries, the message is automatically converted to/from the FIPA compliant
syntax, encoding; and transport protocol. This conversion is transparent to the agent
implementers that only need to deal with Java objects.
- A library of FIPA that is ready to be used.
In Jade, an agent is an instance of the Java class defined by the programmer. This class itself
is an extension of the basic Agent class (included jade.core). It implies the inheritance of the set
of basic methods to implement the personalized behaviour of the agent. The agent is
implemented using multitasking; where the tasks (behaviours) are executed concurrently. Every
functionality supplied by an agent must be implemented in one or several behaviours.
The fallowing Java code represents the implementation of the Manager class and the Actor
agent class. These classes are extensions of the basic Agent class respectively of the manager
agent class and Actor agent.
public class Agent_Manager extends Agent {
protected void setup () {
addBehaviour (new Simple Behaviour (this)){
// Processing
}
}
public class Agent_Actor extends Agent {
class reception extends simpleBehaviour {
// Processing
}
Public reception (Agent a){super (a);}
protected void setup() {
reception mybehaviour = new reception(this);
addBehqviour (mybehaviour);
}
}
Fig. 5. Implementation of MAS architecture in JADE
5.3 Experiment results and consideration
In order to illustrate the main of our idea which has been introduced in sections 3 and 4 and to
see the reflection which must be made by MAS to respect the strategy of adaptability
implemented two classes of adaptability cases are simulated using the MAS.
It is supposed that Agent manager carries to starting the process workflow through CFP
(call for propose) for the realization of the tasks (7 tasks) by using the protocol Contract-Net.
- The first scenario is the following: it is supposed that an actor agent is blocking during
the execution of its activities. At the time when the process is running, the manager agent
realized that the actor agent 3 is blocking. Hence, its return into Base rules of global
adaptability (BRGA) to see what rule is adequate in the case (blocking of an agent actor).
According to this base, it must applies the action defines by rule N°1 which indicates that it
owes reassigned this tasks in other agent actor; i.e. provided that the agent actor support this
tasks such as secondary tasks. In jade, l' Agent manager consulted the DF of the platform to
recover a set of agents actors, he find the agent actor 5.
Thereafter, the manager agent sends to “agent actor 5” a CFP for the realization of tasks 5
and 8. The agent actor 5 answers favorably the offer of the Manager agent and it thus takes
again the role of the agent blocked “Agent3” while the workflow process continues to function.
The figure Fig. 7 presents the interaction between the manager agent and a whole of Actor
agents to adjust the operation of the system caused by the blocking of the agent Actor 3”.
Fig. 6. The result of the interaction between SMA in scenario 1
- Scenario 2: the second example supposed that the change goes affects the reorganization
of the workflow process. It is supposed that the company has to decide to modify its process by
requiring a second expertise for any accident (add of new tasks). Thus, the expert goes
introduced the description of new task in XPDL through expert interface (see Fig.7).
Manager agent made resorts to his "base rules of global adaptability" to see what the
action which must be connects if a new task east injects into the diagram of the process
workflow. Manager Agent must carry out the rule N°6 which indicates that the Agent Manager
(in collaboration of course with the expert agent) goes and redefine the scheduling of the tasks
of the workflow process and thus the allocation of the task " second expertise" with an agent
actor of the system.
Fig. 7. Add of new task through the Expert Interface in Agent Manager
The following figure represent the process of take in charge adaptability when one adds
the task “second expertise” in the diagram of the process workflow (Fig. 8).
Fig. 8 The result of the interaction between SMA in scenario 2
6 Summary
In this paper we have tried to make the workflow more flexible by using the MAS
paradigm. The strategy suggested and the architecture that it support has makes more flexibility
in the system. Hence, the presented solution could guarantee a degree of stability of the process
workflow in a rather dynamic environment.
We can conclude that the MAS approach can be used as methodology to make more
stability of workflow process. Moreover, its concepts are adequate to taking in charge
adaptability in a workflow environment. A prototype has been developed to show the feasibility
and validity of this idea. Our future work will focus to cover all possible combination of
adaptability cases and to achieve communication between MAS and others participants in
external environment applications.
References
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