Workflow
Encyclopedia
A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work. For control purposes, workflow may be a view on real work under a chosen aspect, thus serving as a virtual representation of actual work. The flow being described may refer to a document
or product
that is being transferred from one step to another.
A workflow is a model to represent real work for further assessment, e.g., for describing a reliably repeatable sequence of operations. More abstractly, a workflow is a pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resource
s, defined role
s and mass
, energy
and information
flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned. Workflows are designed to achieve processing intents of some sort, such as physical transformation, service provision, or information processing
.
Workflow concepts are closely related to other concepts used to describe organizational structure, such as silos
, functions, team
s, project
s, policies
and hierarchies
. Workflows may be viewed as one primitive building block of organizations. The relationships among these concepts are described later in this entry.
The term workflow is used in computer programming to capture and develop human-to-machine interaction.
and other fields that study the nature of work, either quantitatively or qualitatively, such as artificial intelligence
(in particular, the sub-discipline of AI planning) and ethnography
. The term workflow is more commonly used in particular industries, such as printing, and professional domains, where it may have particular specialized meanings.
founders Ted Smith and Ed Miller. The company called its business process automation software "WorkFlo".
In 1995, the publishing industry studied how traditional publishing processes could be re-engineered and streamlined into digital processes in order to reduce lagtime, as well as substantial printing and shipping costs for delivering print copies of books and journals to warehouses and subscribers. The term electronic workflow was used to describe the publishing process, from online delivery of digital manuscripts to the posting of content on the web for online access.
The development of the concept of workflow occurred over a series of loosely defined, overlapping, eras.
and H. Gantt
. Rudolf Laban
and Warren Lamb
contributed to this in England. Together Taylor and Gantt launched the study of the deliberate, rational organization of work in the context of manufacturing
. The types of workflow of concern to Taylor and his contemporaries primarily involved mass and energy flows. These were studied and improved using time and motion studies. While the assembly line remains the most famous example of a workflow from this era, the early thinking around work was far more sophisticated than is commonly understood. The notion of flow was more than a sequential breakdown of processing. The common conceptual models of modern operations research, including flow shops, job shops, and queuing systems, can be found in early forms in early 20th century industry.
Information based workflows began to grow during this era, although the concept of an information flow lacked flexibility. A particularly influential figure was Melvil Dewey
(inventor of the eponymous Dewey Decimal System), who was responsible for the development of the hanging file folder. This era is thus identified with the simplest notions of workflow optimization: throughput and resource utilization.
The cultural impact of workflow optimization during this era can be understood through films such as Chaplin's classic Modern Times
. These concepts did not stay confined to the shop floor. One magazine invited housewives to puzzle over the fastest way to toast three slices of bread on a one-side, two-slice grill. The book Cheaper by the Dozen
introduced the emerging concepts to the context of family life.
and the copier helped spread the study of the rational organization of labor from the manufacturing shop floor to the office. Filing systems and other sophisticated systems for managing physical information flows evolved. Two events provided a huge impetus to the development of formalized information workflows. First, the field of optimization theory matured and developed mathematical optimization techniques. Second, World War II
and the Apollo program were unprecedented in their demands for the rational organization of work.
The classic management tome The Organization Man
culturally captured the nature of work in this era.
, which describes human needs for self-actualization and creative engagement in work, became a popular tool in this critique. This issue was acknowledged, but did not gain much traction otherwise.
The second critique had to do with quality. Workflows optimized for a particular time became inflexible as work conditions changed. Quality, in both analytic and synthetic manifestations, transformed the nature of work through a variety of movements, ranging from total quality management
to Six Sigma
to more qualitative notions of business process reengineering
(Hammers and Champy, 1991). Under the influence of the quality movement, workflows became the subject of much scrutiny and optimization efforts. Acknowledgement of the dynamic and changing nature of the demands on workflows came in the form of recognition of the phenomena associated with critical paths and moving bottlenecks.
The experiences with the quality movement made it clear that information flows are fundamentally different from the mass and energy flows which inspired the first forms of rational workflows. The low cost and adaptability of information flows were seen as enabling workflows that were at once highly rational in their organization and highly flexible, adaptable and responsive. These insights unleashed a whole range of information technology at workflows in manufacturing, services and pure information work. Flexible manufacturing systems, just-in-time inventory management, and other highly agile and adaptable systems of workflow are products of this era.
Workflow management systems may control automated processes in addition to replacing paper workorder transfers. If for example the above design documents are now available as Autocad but the workflow requires them as Catia an automated process would implement the conversion prior to notifying the individual responsible for the next task. This is the concept of dependencies. A workflow management system reflects the dependencies required for the completion of each task.
As a way of bridging the gap between the two, significant effort is being put into defining workflow patterns
that can be used to compare different workflow engine
s across both of these domains.
Components can only be plugged together if the output of one previous (set of) component(s) is equal to the mandatory input requirements of the following component. Thus, the essential description of a component actually comprises only in- and output that are described fully in terms of data type
s and their meaning (semantics
). The algorithms' or rules' description need only be included when there are several alternative ways to transform one type of input into one type of output – possibly with different accuracy, speed, etc.
When the components are non-local services that are invoked remotely via a computer network, such as Web service
s, additional descriptors (such as QoS
and availability
) also must be considered.
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...
or product
Product (business)
In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce ' lead or bring forth'. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced...
that is being transferred from one step to another.
A workflow is a model to represent real work for further assessment, e.g., for describing a reliably repeatable sequence of operations. More abstractly, a workflow is a pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resource
Resource
A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
s, defined role
Role
A role or a social role is a set of connected behaviours, rights and obligations as conceptualised by actors in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behaviour and may have a given individual social status or social position...
s and mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
, energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
and information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned. Workflows are designed to achieve processing intents of some sort, such as physical transformation, service provision, or information processing
Information processing
Information processing is the change of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process which describes everything which happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system...
.
Workflow concepts are closely related to other concepts used to describe organizational structure, such as silos
Information silo
An information silo is a management system incapable of reciprocal operation with other, related management systems. A bank's management system, for example, is considered a silo if it cannot exchange information with other related systems within its own organization, or with the management systems...
, functions, team
Team
A team comprises a group of people or animals linked in a common purpose. Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team...
s, project
Project
A project in business and science is typically defined as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems that are constituted by teams...
s, policies
Policy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
and hierarchies
Hierarchical organization
A hierarchical organization is an organizational structure where every entity in the organization, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a form of a hierarchy. In an organization, the hierarchy usually consists of a singular/group of power at the top with...
. Workflows may be viewed as one primitive building block of organizations. The relationships among these concepts are described later in this entry.
The term workflow is used in computer programming to capture and develop human-to-machine interaction.
Related concept
The concept of workflow is closely related to several other fields in operations researchOperations research
Operations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...
and other fields that study the nature of work, either quantitatively or qualitatively, such as artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
(in particular, the sub-discipline of AI planning) and ethnography
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
. The term workflow is more commonly used in particular industries, such as printing, and professional domains, where it may have particular specialized meanings.
- Processes: A process is a more specific notion than workflow, and can apply to physical or biological processes, for instance. In the context of concepts surrounding work, a process may be distinguished from a workflow by the fact that it has well-defined inputs, outputs and purposes, while the notion of workflow may apply more generally to any systematic pattern of activity (such as all processes occurring in a machine shop).
- Planning and scheduling: A plan is a description of the logically necessary, partially-ordered set of activities required to accomplish a specific goal given certain starting conditions. A plan, when augmented with a schedule and resource allocationResource allocationResource allocation is used to assign the available resources in an economic way. It is part of resource management. In project management, resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource...
calculations, completely defines a particular instance of systematic processing in pursuit of a goal. A workflow may be viewed as an (often optimal or near-optimal) realization of the mechanisms required to execute the same plan repeatedly. - Flow control is a control concept applied to workflows to divert from static control concepts applied to stock, that simply managed the buffers of material or orders, to a more dynamic concept of control, that manages the flow speed and flow volumes in motion and in process. Such orientation to dynamic aspects is the basic foundation to prepare for more advanced job shop controls, as just-in-time or just-in-sequence.
- In transit visibility is a monitoring concept that applies to transported material as well as to work in process or work in progress, i.e., workflows.
Historical development
In the 1980s, the term workflow was first used in its modern form in the software industry by FileNetFileNet
FileNet, a company acquired by IBM, developed software to help enterprises manage their content and business processes. The FileNet P8 platform, their flagship system, is a framework for developing custom enterprise systems, offering much functionality out of the box and capable of being customized...
founders Ted Smith and Ed Miller. The company called its business process automation software "WorkFlo".
In 1995, the publishing industry studied how traditional publishing processes could be re-engineered and streamlined into digital processes in order to reduce lagtime, as well as substantial printing and shipping costs for delivering print copies of books and journals to warehouses and subscribers. The term electronic workflow was used to describe the publishing process, from online delivery of digital manuscripts to the posting of content on the web for online access.
The development of the concept of workflow occurred over a series of loosely defined, overlapping, eras.
Beginnings in manufacturing
The modern history of workflows can be traced to Frederick TaylorFrederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants...
and H. Gantt
Henry Gantt
Henry Laurence Gantt, A.B., M.E. was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is most famous for developing the Gantt chart in the 1910s....
. Rudolf Laban
Rudolf Laban
Rudolf von Laban aka Rudolf Laban was a dance artist and theorist whose work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other more specific developments in dance notation...
and Warren Lamb
Warren Lamb
Warren Lamb, born in England, is a management consultant, teacher and lecturer. He is a pioneer in the field of nonverbal behavior, having created Movement Pattern Analysis, a motivational assessment tool based on movement observation.-Early life:...
contributed to this in England. Together Taylor and Gantt launched the study of the deliberate, rational organization of work in the context of manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
. The types of workflow of concern to Taylor and his contemporaries primarily involved mass and energy flows. These were studied and improved using time and motion studies. While the assembly line remains the most famous example of a workflow from this era, the early thinking around work was far more sophisticated than is commonly understood. The notion of flow was more than a sequential breakdown of processing. The common conceptual models of modern operations research, including flow shops, job shops, and queuing systems, can be found in early forms in early 20th century industry.
Information based workflows began to grow during this era, although the concept of an information flow lacked flexibility. A particularly influential figure was Melvil Dewey
Melvil Dewey
Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey was an American librarian and educator, inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, and a founder of the Lake Placid Club....
(inventor of the eponymous Dewey Decimal System), who was responsible for the development of the hanging file folder. This era is thus identified with the simplest notions of workflow optimization: throughput and resource utilization.
The cultural impact of workflow optimization during this era can be understood through films such as Chaplin's classic Modern Times
Modern Times (film)
Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his iconic Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in...
. These concepts did not stay confined to the shop floor. One magazine invited housewives to puzzle over the fastest way to toast three slices of bread on a one-side, two-slice grill. The book Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cheaper by the Dozen is a biographical book written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey that tells the story of time and motion study and efficiency experts Frank Bunker Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbreth, and their twelve children. The book focuses on the many years the...
introduced the emerging concepts to the context of family life.
Maturation and growth
The invention of the typewriterTypewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
and the copier helped spread the study of the rational organization of labor from the manufacturing shop floor to the office. Filing systems and other sophisticated systems for managing physical information flows evolved. Two events provided a huge impetus to the development of formalized information workflows. First, the field of optimization theory matured and developed mathematical optimization techniques. Second, World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Apollo program were unprecedented in their demands for the rational organization of work.
The classic management tome The Organization Man
The Organization Man
The Organization Man is a 1956 bestselling book by William H. Whyte, originally published by Simon & Schuster. It is considered one of the most influential books on management ever written.-Background and influence:...
culturally captured the nature of work in this era.
Quality era
During the 1980s two aspects of workflow organization drew heavy criticism. First, the methods pioneered by Taylor modeled humans as simple automata. The classical industrial-style organization of work was critiqued as being both dehumanizing and suboptimal in its use of the potential of human beings. Maslow's hierarchy of needsMaslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity...
, which describes human needs for self-actualization and creative engagement in work, became a popular tool in this critique. This issue was acknowledged, but did not gain much traction otherwise.
The second critique had to do with quality. Workflows optimized for a particular time became inflexible as work conditions changed. Quality, in both analytic and synthetic manifestations, transformed the nature of work through a variety of movements, ranging from total quality management
Total Quality Management
Total quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
to Six Sigma
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...
to more qualitative notions of business process reengineering
Business process reengineering
Business process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.According to Davenport a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome....
(Hammers and Champy, 1991). Under the influence of the quality movement, workflows became the subject of much scrutiny and optimization efforts. Acknowledgement of the dynamic and changing nature of the demands on workflows came in the form of recognition of the phenomena associated with critical paths and moving bottlenecks.
The experiences with the quality movement made it clear that information flows are fundamentally different from the mass and energy flows which inspired the first forms of rational workflows. The low cost and adaptability of information flows were seen as enabling workflows that were at once highly rational in their organization and highly flexible, adaptable and responsive. These insights unleashed a whole range of information technology at workflows in manufacturing, services and pure information work. Flexible manufacturing systems, just-in-time inventory management, and other highly agile and adaptable systems of workflow are products of this era.
Workflow Management System
A workflow management system is a computer system that manages and defines a series of tasks within an organization to produce a final outcome or outcomes. Workflow Management Systems allow you to define different workflows for different types of jobs or processes. So, for example, in a manufacturing setting, a design document might be automatically routed from designer to a technical director to the production engineer. At each stage in the workflow, one individual or group is responsible for a specific task. Once the task is complete, the workflow software ensures that the individuals responsible for the next task are notified and receive the data they need to execute their stage of the process. Workflow management systems also automate redundant tasks and ensure uncompleted tasks are followed up.Workflow management systems may control automated processes in addition to replacing paper workorder transfers. If for example the above design documents are now available as Autocad but the workflow requires them as Catia an automated process would implement the conversion prior to notifying the individual responsible for the next task. This is the concept of dependencies. A workflow management system reflects the dependencies required for the completion of each task.
Examples
The following examples illustrate the variety of workflows seen in various contexts:- In machine shops, particularly job shops and flow shops, the flow of a part through the various processing stations is a work flow.
- Insurance claims processing is an example of an information-intensive, document-driven workflow.
- Wikipedia editing is an example of a stochastic workflow.
- The Getting Things DoneGetting Things DoneGetting Things Done is an organizational method created by productivity consultant David Allen, described in a book of the same name....
system is a model of personal workflow management for information workers. - In global software development, the concept of follow-the-sunFollow-the-sunFollow-the-sun is a type of global workflow in which tasks are passed around daily between work sites that are many time zones apart. Such a workflow is set up in order to reduce project duration and increase responsiveness...
describes a process of passing unfinished work across time zones. - In Traditional Offset and Digital Printing workflow is the process, people and usually software technology (RIPs raster image processors or DFE digital front end)controllers that play a part in pre/post processing of print related files. e.g. PDF pre-flight checking to make sure fonts are embedded or that the imaging output to plate or digital press will be able to render the document intent properly for the image output capabilities of the press that will print the final image.
- In Scientific experiments, the overall process (tasks and data flow) can be described as a Directed Acyclic GraphDirected acyclic graphIn mathematics and computer science, a directed acyclic graph , is a directed graph with no directed cycles. That is, it is formed by a collection of vertices and directed edges, each edge connecting one vertex to another, such that there is no way to start at some vertex v and follow a sequence of...
(DAG). This DAG is referred to as a workflow, e.g. Brain Imaging workflows. - In healthcare data analysis, a workflow can be used to represent a sequence of steps which compose a complex data analysis (data search and data manipulation steps).
- In Service-oriented architectureService-oriented architectureIn software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
s an application can be represented through an executable workflow, where different, possibly geographically distributed, service components interact to provide the corresponding functionality, under the control of a Workflow Management System.
Features and phenomenology
- Modeling: Workflow problems can be modeled and analyzed using graphGraph theoryIn mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...
-based formalisms like Petri netPetri netA Petri net is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. A Petri net is a directed bipartite graph, in which the nodes represent transitions and places...
s. - Measurement: Many of the concepts used to measure scheduling systems in operations researchOperations researchOperations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...
are useful for measuring general workflows. These include throughput, processing time, and other regular metrics. - Specialized connotations: The term workflow has specialized connotations in information technologyInformation technologyInformation technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, document management and imagingDocument imagingDocument imaging is an information technology category for systems capable of replicating documents commonly used in business. Document imaging systems can take many forms including microfilm, on demand printers, facsimile machines, copiers, multifunction printers, document scanners, computer...
. Since 1993, one trade consortium specifically focused on workflow management and the interoperability of workflow management systems has been the Workflow Management CoalitionWorkflow Management CoalitionWorkflow Management Coalition is a consortium, formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. It was founded in May 1993 as an offshoot of the Black Forest Group with original members including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, ICL, Staffware and approximately 300...
. - Scientific workflows: Found wide acceptance in the fields of bioinformaticsBioinformaticsBioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
and cheminformaticsCheminformaticsCheminformatics is the use of computer and informational techniques, applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. These in silico techniques are used in pharmaceutical companies in the process of drug discovery...
in the early 2000s, where they successfully met the need for multiple interconnected tools, handling of multiple data formats and large data quantities. Also, the paradigm of scientific workflows was close to the well-established tradition of PerlPerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
scripting in life-science research organizations, so this adoption represented a natural step forward towards a more structured infrastructure setup. - Human-machine interaction: Several conceptualizations of mixed-initiative workflows have been studied, particularly in the military, where automated agents play roles just as humans do. For innovative, adaptive, collaborative human work the techniques of human interaction managementHuman interaction managementHuman Interaction Management is a set of management principles, patterns and techniques complementary to Business process management...
are required.
Workflow improvement theories
The key driver to gain benefit from the understanding of the workflow process in a business context is that the throughput of the workstream path is modelled in such a way as to evaluate the efficiency of the flow route through internal silos with a view to increasing discrete control of uniquely identified business attributes and rules and reducing potential low efficiency drivers. Evaluation of resources, both physical and human is essential to evaluate hand-off points and potential to create smoother transitions between tasks. Several workflow improvement theories have been proposed and implemented in the modern workplace. These include:- Six SigmaSix SigmaSix Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...
- Total Quality ManagementTotal Quality ManagementTotal quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes....
- Business Process ReengineeringBusiness process reengineeringBusiness process re-engineering is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization.According to Davenport a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome....
- LeanLean manufacturingLean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, "Lean," is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination...
systems
As a way of bridging the gap between the two, significant effort is being put into defining workflow patterns
Workflow patterns
A workflow pattern is a specialized form of a design pattern as defined in the area of software engineering or business process engineering respectively...
that can be used to compare different workflow engine
Workflow engine
A workflow engine is a software application that manages and executes modeled computer processes. It is a key component in workflow technology and typically makes use of a database server....
s across both of these domains.
Workflow components
A workflow can usually be described using formal or informal flow diagramming techniques, showing directed flows between processing steps. Single processing steps or components of a workflow can basically be defined by three parameters:- input description: the information, material and energy required to complete the step
- transformation rules, algorithmAlgorithmIn mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
s, which may be carried out by associated human roles or machines, or a combination - outputOutputOutput is the term denoting either an exit or changes which exit a system and which activate/modify a process. It is an abstract concept, used in the modeling, system design and system exploitation.-In control theory:...
description: the information, material and energy produced by the step and provided as input to downstream steps.
Components can only be plugged together if the output of one previous (set of) component(s) is equal to the mandatory input requirements of the following component. Thus, the essential description of a component actually comprises only in- and output that are described fully in terms of data type
Data type
In computer programming, a data type is a classification identifying one of various types of data, such as floating-point, integer, or Boolean, that determines the possible values for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that type; the meaning of the data; and the way values of...
s and their meaning (semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
). The algorithms' or rules' description need only be included when there are several alternative ways to transform one type of input into one type of output – possibly with different accuracy, speed, etc.
When the components are non-local services that are invoked remotely via a computer network, such as Web service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
s, additional descriptors (such as QoS
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
and availability
Availability
In telecommunications and reliability theory, the term availability has the following meanings:* The degree to which a system, subsystem, or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at an unknown, i.e., a random, time...
) also must be considered.
Workflow applications
Many software systems exist to support workflows in particular domains. Such systems manage tasks such as automatic routing, partially automated processing and integration between different functional software applications and hardware systems that contribute to the value-addition process underlying the workflow.See also
- Bioinformatics workflow management systemsBioinformatics workflow management systemsA bioinformatics workflow management system is a specialized form of workflow management system designed specifically to compose and execute a series of computational or data manipulation steps, or a workflow, in a specific domain of science, bioinformatics....
- Business process automationBusiness process automationBusiness process automation, or BPA, is the strategy a business uses to automate processes in order to contain costs. It consists of integrating applications, restructuring labor resources and using software applications throughout the organization....
- Business process managementBusiness process managementBusiness process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to...
- Business process modelingBusiness process modelingBusiness Process Modeling in systems engineering is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed and improved. BPM is typically performed by business analysts and managers who are seeking to improve process efficiency and quality...
- Business-driven developmentBusiness-driven developmentBusiness-driven development is a methodology for developing IT solutions that directly satisfy business requirements. This is achieved by adopting a model-driven approach that starts with the business strategy, requirements and goals and then transforms them into an IT solution. The transformation...
- Computer-supported collaborationComputer-supported collaborationComputer-supported collaboration research focuses on technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies, e.g., voice mail and text chat. It grew from cooperative work study of supporting people's work activities and working relationships...
- Enterprise content managementEnterprise content managementEnterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes...
- Process architectureProcess architectureDualistic Petri nets are a process-class variant of Petri nets.Like Petri nets in general and many related formalisms and notations, they are used to describe and analyze process architecture.-Process Modeling with dPNs :...
- Process-driven applicationProcess-driven applicationA process-driven application is a software application that is driven by an underlying process engine where the process can be exposed and reused. In effect all applications are process-driven and the logic of any application can be extrapolated into a flowchart to represent the logical process of...
- Project managementProject managementProject management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value...
- Scientific workflow systemScientific workflow systemA Scientific Workflow Systems is a specialized form of a workflow management system designed specifically to compose and execute a series of computational or data manipulation steps, or a workflow, in a scientific application...
- Smart contractsSmart contractsSmart contracts are computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that obviate the need for a contractual clause. Smart contracts usually also have a user interface and often emulate the logic of contractual clauses...
Further reading
- Ryan K. L. Ko, Stephen S. G. Lee, Eng Wah Lee (2009) Business Process Management (BPM) Standards: A Survey. In: Business Process Management Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Volume 15 Issue 5. ISSN 1463-7154. PDF
- Khalid Belhajjame, Christine Collet, Genoveva Vargas-Solar: A Flexible Workflow Model for Process-Oriented Applications. WISE (1) 2001, IEEE CS, 2001.
- Marlon Dumas, Wil van der AalstWil van der AalstWil M.P. van der Aalst is a Dutch computer scientist, and professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems group, His research and teaching interests include information systems, workflow...
, Arthur ter Hofstede: Process-Aware Information Systems, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-66306-9 - Layna Fischer (ed.): 2007 BPM and Workflow Handbook, Future Strategies Inc., ISBN 978-0-9777527-1-3
- Layna Fischer: Workflow Handbook 2005, Future Strategies, ISBN 0-9703509-8-8
- Layna Fischer: Excellence in Practice, Volume V: Innovation and Excellence in Workflow and Business Process Management, ISBN 0-9703509-5-3
- Thomas L. Friedman: The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-29288-4
- Keith Harrison-Broninski. Human Interactions: The Heart and Soul of Business Process Management. ISBN 0-929652-44-4
- Holly Yu: Content and Work Flow Management for Library Websites: Case Studies, Information Science Publishing, ISBN 1-59140-534-3
- Wil van der AalstWil van der AalstWil M.P. van der Aalst is a Dutch computer scientist, and professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems group, His research and teaching interests include information systems, workflow...
, Kees van Hee: Workflow Management: Models, Methods, and Systems, B&T, ISBN 0-262-72046-9 - Setrag Khoshafian, Marek Buckiewicz: Introduction to Groupware, Workflow and Workgroup Computing, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-02946-7
- Rashid N. Kahn: Understanding Workflow Automation: A Guide to Enhancing Customer Loyalty, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-061918-3
- Dan C. Marinescu: Internet-Based Workflow Management: Towards a Semantic Web, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-43962-2
- Frank Leymann, Dieter Roller: Production Workflow: Concepts and Techniques, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-021753-0
- Michael Jackson, Graham Twaddle: Business Process Implementation: Building Workflow Systems, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-17768-4
- Alec Sharp, Patrick McDermott: Workflow Modeling, Artech House Publishers, ISBN 1-58053-021-4
- Toni Hupp: Designing Work Groups, Jobs, and Work Flow, Pfeiffer & Company, ISBN 0-7879-0063-X
- Gary Poyssick, Steve Hannaford: Workflow Reengineering, Adobe, ISBN 1-56830-265-7
- Dave Chaffey: Groupware, Workflow and Intranets: Reengineering the Enterprise with Collaborative Software, Digital Press, ISBN 1-55558-184-6
- Wolfgang Gruber: Modeling and Transformation of Workflows With Temporal Constraints, IOS Press, ISBN 1-58603-416-2
- Andrzej Cichocki, Marek Rusinkiewicz, Darrell Woelk: Workflow and Process Automation Concepts and Technology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7923-8099-1
- Alan R. Simon, William Marion: Workgroup Computing: Workflow, Groupware, and Messaging, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-057628-9
- Penny Ann Dolin: Exploring Digital Workflow, Delmar Thomson Learning, ISBN 1-4018-9654-5
- Gary Poyssick: Managing Digital Workflow, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-010911-8
- Frank J. Romano: PDF Printing & Workflow, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-020837-X
- James G. Kobielus: Workflow Strategies, Hungry Minds, ISBN 0-7645-3012-7
- Alan Rickayzen, Jocelyn Dart, Carsten Brennecke: Practical Workflow for SAP, Galileo, ISBN 1-59229-006-X
- Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Angela Ashenden: E-process: Workflow for the E-business, Ovum, ISBN 1-902566-65-3
- Stanislaw Wrycza: Systems Development Methods for Databases, Enterprise Modeling, and Workflow Management, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, ISBN 0-306-46299-0
- Database Support for Workflow Management, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7923-8414-8
- Matthew Searle: Developing With Oracle Workflow
- V. Curcin and M. Ghanem Scientific workflow systems - can one size fit all? paper in CIBEC'08 comparing scientific workflow systems.
External links
- Workflow patterns
- A Reference Architecture for Scientific Workflow Management Systems and the VIEW SOA Solution
- "Knowledge Based Techniques to Increase the Flexibility of Workflow Management" by Barbara Dellen, Frank Maurer, Gerhard Pews
- The State of Workflow May 2004 article by Tom Baeyens
- Business Process Modelling vs. Workflow Management
- Workflow Management Coalition
- Simplifying Design of Complex Workflows