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WORKFLOW HANDBOOK 1997

Edited by Peter Lawrence


Published in association with the
Workflow Management Coalition
The Business Impact of Workflow
When considering the business benefits of workflow systems, one of
the first to arise will be quality, in one form or another. By facilitating
consistency, and enforcing standards, workflow can certainly be said to
contribute to quality in an organization.
Implementing Workflow
In planning a workflow application, one of the first questions to be
contemplated is how the work is to be assigned to users. Essentially,
there has to be a mapping between the workflow model and an
organizational model.
Another activity, which forms part of a workflow project, is the
development of the software to take care of the tasks to be performed
at each step of the Process. Since there will be elements of
commonality between different processes, and at different points in a
single process, there must be scope to enhance productivity be reusing method of cataloguing common tasks to facilitate their reuse
across processes.
What is Workflow?
Workflow promises a new solution to an age-old problem: managing
and supporting business processes. What is new about workflow is the
way it harnesses the power of information technology to support
structured work. Workflow systems offer a new model for the division
of labor between people and computers.
Workflow systems support business processes by:

Enforcing the logic that governs transitions between tasks in a


process, ensuring that all the tasks appropriate to a particular
case or instance of a process are performed
Supporting the individual tasks in a process, bringing together
the human and/or information resources needed to complete
each task.

Workflow systems provide a process control backbone for business


processes: they mediate the flow of responsibility in a process from
person to person and from task to task. They differ from ordinary
computer programs because of the way that they cut the world.
Instead of hardwiring a process and making it implicit (and hard to
change), they enable you to design with process in focus, and make
the right abstractions in your design.
Benefits of Workflow
Motivations For Using Workflow
Most organizations using workflow are motivated by three factors:

Improved efficiency, leading to lower costs or higher workload


capacity
Improved control, resulting from standardization of procedures
Improved ability to manage processes: performance problems
are made explicit and understood

For many organizations, the real driver for their workflow decision
is:

Pressure for cost reduction, where cost is a euphemism for


staff
Pressure for increased quality or capacity while controlling costs.

However, it is important to remember that balance-sheet


improvement is not an inevitable consequence of introducing
workflow. Process improvements happen as a result of less abstract
changes:

Process standardization
Process management
Efficient delivery of information-based tasks to workers
Explicit focus on process design

In considering whether workflow can help improve your processes, it


is important to focus on these effects: they summarize what
workflow actually does. Process improvement, if it occurs, will occur
by means of these more concrete effects.
Who Uses Workflow?

Many different types of organizations are using workflow systems, in


many different ways. For Example:

Insurance companies are using workflow to speed up claims


management while maintaining control over it.
Government departments are using workflow to improve
efficiency in making decisions about paying social security
benefits.
Organizations of all types are using workflow to improve the
effectiveness of their customer service operations and order
processing.
Workflow is being used to support routine internal administrative
processes, such as personnel reporting and expense-claims
management
Workflow is being used to enable people to construct their own,
customized, workflow processes to deal with their own
specialized process responsibilities.
Even very complex processes, such as extremely large software
development projects, are being supported by workflow systems.

Fundamental Concepts
There are four basic concepts in workflow:

Process logic
Match-making people and tasks
Providing information resources for tasks
Process management

Process Logic
A workflow system provides computer-based support for business
process logic. Using a workflow system, a business can both enforce
and document the business process rules it uses.
Workflow systems provide a process control backbone for business
processes:
They meditate the flow of responsibility in a process from person to
person and from task to task, by:
Representing the definition of each process.
Keeping track of the state of each instance of the process as it
progresses through its defined task stages
Pushing the process along to the next task that needs to be
performed, according to the logic that is defined for the process.

The Workflow system provides run-time software support for the


flow of control from one task in a process to the next, and from one
worker to the next.
Match- Making between People and Tasks
Workflow systems take responsibility for ensuring that the tasks that
need to be done are matched up with the resources needed to
perform them. When a task needs a person in order to be
completed, the workflow system will support the necessary matchmaking between people and tasks.
Product Architectures
Most of the workflow products available on the market today fall
into one of two categories:

Those, which use forms and messages, routing electronic forms


to users email in-boxes.
Those which use a centralized workflow engine, which
communicates with workers via specialized client software and is
integrated with external task applications.

The distinction between the two, though clear enough at the


moment, will blur in time.
A new architecture for workflow is also appearing using the Web.
At present, a typical Web architecture for workflow is close to the
centralized engine paradigm. Where it differs from older-style
engine implementations is in its use of a super thin client (i.e.) a
Web browser, with the end-user functionality resident and executing
on the server (coded into HTML forms and CGI gateway scripts
which invoke other server applications).
Workflow Management is a pro-active system for managing
a series of tasks defined in one or more procedures. The
system ensures that the tasks are passed among the
appropriate participants in the correct sequence, and
completed within set times (default actions being taken
where necessary)
Participants may be people or other systems. People interact
through workstations, while other systems are accessed over a
communications network.

The Immediate Benefits of Workflow Management


A major benefit is the reduction in use of paper, since most
documents can be stored and processed electronically. This in turn
leads to further advantages:

There is just one master copy of each document, avoiding the


use of extra copies, which may form a security risk.
Documents dont have to be physically transported from person
to person, so that the staff involved in any one procedure no
longer have to be located close together to minimize transport
costs and times.
Documents are always traceable and available, to allow
immediate response to enquiries.
Data entered to documents can be validated on entry, reducing
errors and consequent delays.
Accurate information on work-in-progress is instantly available,
including the content of documents; for example, summaries of
the value of work in progress.

A major benefit is that the speed of processing is greatly increased,


due to the elimination of hidden delays in manual procedures.
Processing work more quickly not only reduces costs, but also
improves service to customers, which provides a major competitive
advantage for commercial organizations.
Other benefits arise from having business procedures inherently well
defined and enforced:

Errors are reduced, and the quality of work enhanced;


compliance with quality standards such as BS 5750 and ISO 9000
is much more readily attained
Changes are easier to introduce, because they can be better
defined and implemented
Staff training times are reduced, because the WFM system itself
leads staff precisely through procedures
New procedures can be developed and introduced very rapidly,
enabling fast responses to changing markets.

Since faster processing offers a real competitive advantage to


commercial organizations, business levels are often increased, to the
extent that no staff need be made redundant due to the greater
efficiencies. The same number of staff simply process more business.

The staff themselves may initially be wary of WFM, seeing it as a threat


both to jobs and to their individual freedom. However, WFM can relieve
staff of the tedious elements of their duties, such as retrieving and
storing files, and so allow more time for the creative aspects.
Furthermore, rewards for good performance can be given on a more
objective basis. Staff of organizations using WFM generally become
very enthusiastic once they see what it can do for them.
An important factor in the successful introduction of WFM is the
commitment and full support of senior management. Because WFM
can have a profound effect on the way in which an organization works,
introducing it at a low level can lead to conflicts of interest.

- - - - - Working sequence - - - -

SubProcess

synchronization
Work flowWork
Item

Parallel working

Documents

Agenda

Application user interface


Abstract Business Process Model

Application

W fm S
Database Management System

WF
Data

Application -

Data

Architecture of a workflow Application

Architecture of a Workflow Application


A Workflow application generally consists of a database application, an
interface system and a workflow engine, that controls all other
components. The above figure depicts the technical structure of a
workflow application.
The task of the workflow engine is to run the defined business
processes. Many workflow management systems store data within a
repository and interpret them during execution. This has many

advantages because part of the repository data may be changed


dynamically to affect the behavior of the whole system. For instance,
changing the authorization data for a user changes the list of possible
activities and data that the user may execute or access. This holds true
(with some constraints) also for the process models themselves. For
this no programming code must be changed.
One important prerequisite for the success of a workflow application is
an open attitude by company staff toward such new ideas. Not only
must the company change, but also the employees.

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