An evaluation approach for the response time probability distribution of workflows based on the fluid stochastic Petri net formalism is presented. Firstly, some problems about stochastic workflow net modeling are discussed. Then how to convert a stochastic workflow net model into a fluid stochastic Petri net model is described. The response time distribution can be obtained directly upon the transient state solution of the fluid stochastic Petri net model. In the proposed approach, there are not any restrictions on the structure of workflow models, and the processing times of workflow tasks can be modeled by using arbitrary probability distributions. Large workflow models can be efficiently tackled by recursively using a net reduction technique.
