Workflow Automation: Applications, Technology and Research

2005

Abstract Structured business processes are the veins of complex business organizations. Workflows have generally been accepted as a means to model and support these processes, be they interactive or completely automated. The fact that these processes require robustness and clear semantics has generally been observed and has led to the combination of workflow and transaction concepts. Many variations on this combination exist, leading to many approaches to transactional workflow support.

2002

Abstract Workflows have generally been accepted as a means to model and support processes in complex organizations, be they interactive or completely automated. The fact that these processes require robustness and clear semantics has generally been observed and has lead to the combination of workflow and transaction concepts. Many variations on this combination exist, leading to many approaches to transactional workflow support.

Modern Database Systems: The Object …, 1994

The basic transaction model has evolved over time to incorporate more complex transaction structures and to selectively modify the atomicity and isolation properties. In this chapter we discuss the application of transaction concepts to activities that involve coordinated execution of multiple tasks (possibly of di erent t ypes) over di erent processing entities. Such applications are referred to as transactional work ows. In this chapter we discuss the speci cation of such w ork ows and the issues involved in their execution.

Workflow management systems, a relatively recent technology , are designed to make work more efficient, integrate heterogeneous application systems, and support interorganizational processes in electronic commerce applications. In this paper, we introduce the field of workflow automation, the subject of this special issue of Information Systems Frontiers. In the first part of the paper, we provide basic definitions and frameworks to aid understanding of workflow management technologies. In the remainder of the paper, we discuss technical and management research opportunities in this field and discuss the other contributions to the special issue.

Ibm Systems Journal, 1997

A significant number of companies are reengineering their business to be more effective and productive. Consequently, existing applications must be modified, and new applications must be written. The new applications typically run in a distributed and heterogeneous environment, performing single tasks in parallel, and demanding special transaction functionality for the supporting environments. Workflow-based applications offer this type of capability. In this paper, their principal advantages are derived and set in context to transaction, object, and CASE (computer-assisted software engineering) technology. In particular, a method is proposed to develop these workflow-based applications in a cohesive and consistent way.

Dpd, 1995

Today's business enterprises must deal with global competition, reduce the cost of doing business, and rapidly develop new services and products. To address these requirements enterprises must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and change their information systems and applications to support evolving business processes. Workflow technology facilitates these by providing methodologies and software to support (i) business process modeling to capture business processes as workflow specifications, (ii) business process reengineering to optimize specified processes, and (iii) workflow automation to generate workflow implementations from workflow specifications. This paper provides a high-level overview of the current workflow management methodologies and software products. In addition, we discuss the infrastructure technologies that can address the limitations of current commercial workflow technology and extend the scope and mission of workflow management systems to support increased workflow automation in complex real-world environments involving heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed information systems. In particular, we discuss how distributed object management and customized transaction management can support further advances in the commercial state of the art in this area.

1995

Recent recession has compelled many companies to find more effective ways to conduct their business. One remedy suggested is to model organizational dynamics as "business processes" and provide a suitable tool support for this. In this context the buzzwords business process re-engineering and workflow have been often quoted. The basic idea in this thinking is to view the functioning of an organization to consist of business processes and provide computer support for as large part of the processes as possible through "workflow systems". There are currently perhaps hundreds of products which claim to support workflows. We believe that workflow techniques are a proper way of supporting the process approach, but that the approach requires further development for several reasons. In this paper, we will discuss the development needs by presenting organizational and architectural considerations and requirements resulting from them for the workflow techniques. One centra...

Distributed and parallel …, 1995

Today's business enterprises must deal with global competition, reduce the cost of doing business, and rapidly develop new services and products. To address these requirements enterprises must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and change their information systems and applications to support evolving business processes. Workflow technology facilitates these by providing methodologies and software to support (i) business process modeling to capture business processes as workflow specifications, (ii) business process reengineering to optimize specified processes, and (iii) workflow automation to generate workflow implementations from workflow specifications. This paper provides a high-level overview of the current workflow management methodologies and software products. In addition, we discuss the infrastructure technologies that can address the limitations of current commercial workflow technology and extend the scope and mission of workflow management systems to support increased workflow automation in complex real-world environments involving heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed information systems. In particular, we discuss how distributed object management and customized transaction management can support further advances in the commercial state of the art in this area.

2002

ABSTRACT Workflow management systems have come a long way from the first office automation prototypes of the late 1970s. Today, workflow systems are deployed in a variety of situations, ranging from the coordination of document-centric processes in office environments to the automation of application data flow in enterprise application integration scenarios.

1997

Abstract: Work ow management systems (WFMSs) are nding wide applicability in small and large organizational settings. Advanced transaction models (ATMs) focus on maintaining data consistency and have provided solutions to many problems such as correctness, consistency, and reliability in transaction processing and database management environments.