Mobile process management through Web services

Nowadays, process-aware information systems (PAISs) are widely used for the management of "administrative" processes characterized by clear and well-defined structures. Besides those scenarios, PAISs can be used also in mobile and pervasive scenarios, where process participants can be only equipped with smart devices, such as PDAs. This paper illustrates ROME4EU, a fully-fledged PAIS that can be entirely developed on Windows Mobile PDAs. To our knowledge, all existing PAISs are equipped with an engine meant to run only on laptop/desktop. And this prevents them from being used in mobile scenarios, such as emergency management. ROME4EU is based on a mobile Web service middleware and a WS-BPEL orchestrator engine. The feasibility for mobile settings introduces new challenging issues to face with, such as reduced computational power, small screen size, battery consumption, automatic adaptability to anomalous events. The paper details also an evaluation of the ROME4EU's performances and illustrates its use by civil protection operators to manage the aftermath of a (simulated) emergency. © 2010 IEEE.