The operational sequence management and/or English Workflow management (WfM) is the electronic execution of business processes. It is a development of the computers Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Task Workflow management is it to provide on basis of a specification for the execution of operational sequences assistance from IT-systems to. The Workflow management can be understood thereby as a technical conversion of the business process management.

Terms

Activity

An activity in Workflows forms the smallest execution unit. You are typically an activity, implementing resources (persons, machines), resources which can be used (tools, machines, andersweitige operational funds) and temporal dependence (sequence, elapsed time etc.) assigned.

Workflow

A Workflow is a process (alternatively business transaction or generally procedure or work routine), which is composed of individual activities, which refer to parts of a business process or other organizational procedures. A Workflow - contrary to the process - describes in detail the operational level; it ideal-proves so accurately that the following activity is determined by the exit preceding of in each case. The individual activities stand therefore in dependence to each other. A Workflow has a defined beginning, an organized operational sequence and a defined end. Workflows organization-far arbeitsteilige processes are general, during which the resulting activities are coordinated by persons and/or software systems.

Workflows draw by this coordinative character out contrary to cooperative systems, in which more is promoted the synchronous co-operation. A Workflow is reached typically by the serialization and parallelism of the work procedures. Synchronous activities run off strictly separately.

Workflow management

The Workflow management covers all tasks, which must be fulfilled with the modelling, specification, simulation as well as with the execution and controlling of the Workflows.

Workflow management system

A Workflow management system (WfMS) serves the active controlling of arbeitsteiliger processes. An Workflow management application is an implemented solution for the control of Workflows on the basis of a Workflow management system.

Workflow of management systems support structured tasks and processes, however render to Groupware the support for rather unstructured processes.

On technical level an increasing integration of functionalities can be observed by Workflow management systems, CSCW systems, document management systems, Enterprise content management systems (ECM), Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) by Enterprise Application integration (EAI). Workflow systems are assigned frequently the Groupware and to the range CSCW (computer supported CO-operational work), since they regulate the work of different persons within an organization. Contrary to CSCW systems such as multi-user editors, WfMS possess only small support for cooperative interaction.

Goals

With the introduction of Workflow management the generally following goals are pursued:

• the quality of the processes is to be improved,
• the processes are to be standardized,
• a faster and more reliable treatment of customer orders is to be achieved,
• the transportation and downtimes are to be shortened (improvement of turn-around times),
• the operating time and thus the costs are to be reduced,
• the information availability is increased,
• Medium breaks are to be avoided and
• the flexibility of the processes is to be increased.
• Controlled river of data and documents within the enterprises - > decrease of turn-around times
• Reduction of the costs by time and resources optimization
• Increase of the transparency of the processes (status determination, documentation of decisions)
• Improvement of the data quality of master data

See also

• Treatment of procedures, generally
• Enterprise Application integration (EAI) (more strongly on technical level)
• Service-oriented architecture (SOA) (more strongly on technical level)
• Enterprise content management (Workflow as component of ECM solutions)
• Yawl (computer science) is an open SOURCE Workflow engine implemented in Java and based on the Workflow Patterns research.

Literature

• Joachim Mueller: Workflow based integration. Springer publishing house, ISBN 3540204393 (bases, technologies and management: For Entscheider and developers.)
• Thomas Allweyer: Business process management. W3L, 2005, ISBN 3937137114
• dsk study: ECM/BPM edition, 1200 sides, part of 2 Workflow management, 2006, author: Renate Karl, dsk consulting GmbH
• Andreas Gadatsch: Basic course business process management. Vieweg, ISBN 3-528-25759-8 (property overview)
• Klaus G. Workflow: Entrepreneurial success by more efficient operational sequences. Computer week publishing house, ISBN 3930377500
• Stefan Jablonski, Markus Wolfgang Schulze: Workflowmanagement: Development of applications and systems - facets of a new technology. dpunkt publishing house, ISBN 3-920993-73-X (systematic introduction to modelling and technology from the year 1997)
• Dirk Business process optimization by Workflow management.

Related links

• BPM Guide - information platform to business process and Workflow management
• http://www.workflow-research.de/ - informative side with panel
• Seminar work definition and classification of the term world around CSCW, Workgroup Computing, Groupware, Workflow management. of Dominik stone
• Thesis (diploma) from the enterprise modelling to the Workflow management: Integration possibilities by the example of ARIS, Process Weaver and ComponentWare. by Stefan cook
• Workflow management Coalition (WfMC) (combination of the manufacturers, user etc.; publish important standards) (see also appropriate article)
• Concordance of English and German terms of the Workflow management

Articles in category "Workflow management"

We found here 3 articles.

Related Websites

We found here 3 related websites.

• The Workflow Management Coalition
  The Coalitions mission is to promote and develop the use of workflow through the establishment of standards for ... Reference Model · Public Documents ...


• Workflow Management Coalition The Workflow Reference Model
  It provides a common "Reference Model" for workflow management systems ... The Workflow Reference model has been developed from the generic workflow ...


• Workflow Management, Inc.
  Operates as an integrated graphic arts company providing documents, envelopes and commercial printing...