Smoothing the Bumps With Workflows
The term workflow is being used in every area of business, from shop floor to executive suite. Herešs why you should care.
- by Tom Inglesby
What is workflow? Work we all understand. Flow might remind us of rivers and streams. Workflow could therefore be thought of as the movement of work, like
the water in a river, from one place to another in a continuous flow. However, like many rivers, there are rocks along the way, representing points of transaction,
that disrupt the flow and slow the pace of our information river. In some extreme cases, they cause a rapids effect, totally upsetting the ship, i.e., our company. If
we can smooth the flow by removing the bumps and rocks in our way, we can create an even movement of work or, in the digital age, an even flow of
information. The technique to do this is workflow, and the method of achieving it comes packaged in the best software systems.
Workflow is not a new concept, nor is it industry specific. For example, besides manufacturing, workflow concepts are being used successfully in such fields as
healthcare. Doctors are able to streamline patient care, manage disease prevention and handle clinical care delivery better by utilizing these methods. They, too,
software systems developed to implement the concepts of workflow.
In fact, the Delphi Consulting Group defines workflow in terms of the software systems that implement the process. They use two criteria: application type and
development environment. Applications are divided into mail-enabled, document-based and process-centric while the development environments are ad hoc,
use transaction-based, object-oriented or knowledge-based.
According to Hugh Green, president of New York-based Image Consulting Group, another definition identifies the types of workflow. There is the production
version, which deals with predefined processes; the coordination or collaboration method that focuses on organizing and facilitating group work; the administration
variation that deals with internal operational processes; and the ad hoc style where the information is user-directed and typically used only once.
If we draw similarities between these two definitions, the one common term, at least, is ad hoc. Ad hoc systems tend to be best used in projects that are
unstructured or have limited structure and those that have a temporary nature. In many cases, these will be project-oriented and both the members of the team
and the information itself will be different in each subsequent project.
When the project is more tightly structured or repeated, the production methodology of workflow surfaces. As the formal approach favored by many companies,
it is best applied where information must pass from one person or team to another in the same pattern regardless of the project. This is found in the more
regulated industries where an audit trail for every aspect of the production or process must be available for each product or project.
But defining the term workflow this way is not very fulfilling since we still aren't sure what the flow carries along. Green finds that workflow provides the
connectivity tools to manage, organize and distribute specific business tasks and the associated, required information needed to complete those tasks successfully.
This flow of tasks and information might include images of documents, video and any number of information media, including multimedia.
So in reality, workflow is a modern method for passing information from source to user in a continuous stream of data. It is analogous to passing paper from
person to person to get opinions, review and comments, leading to authorization and signing off on the information contained on that paper. In our fast-moving
communications world, paper has been supplanted by digital images, either in the form of text or graphics, that are passed around by means of network systems,
not interoffice envelopes.
Ovum, a United Kingdom-based consulting firm, sees the use of computers for workflow as being a very logical application of technology toward automating
business processes. In a recent report, Ovum noted that the key elements of any workflow system are that it matches people and tasks, provides information
resources for those tasks, offers process design, implements process management techniques, and manages the scope of the project.
If we consider workflow to be an adjunct to the normal flow of information, then it makes sense to acknowledge that the root of workflow is the document. This
appears in the definition of workflow generated by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), an international group in the U.K. They say, "Workflow
management consists of the automation of business procedures during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another in a way
that is governed by rules or procedures."
To implement workflow in silicon requires a method to replace paper trails with electronic ones. Jon Leslie, workflow product manager for DataWorks Corp., a
San Diego-based ERP vendor for mid-range companies, sees the value of software in workflow as being the way to electronically map and control business
processes by mapping those processes directly to the software. "We have combined the best methods from process-oriented workflow with the collaborative or
groupware approach as represented by Lotus Domino or Notes," Leslie explains. "We support documented tasks or events and collaborative document sharing in
a process-related, task-oriented environment where we are routing actual tasks throughout the company, not just documents."
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