Workflows

Design and Control of Workflow Processes

The motivation behind the conception of this monograph was to advance scientific knowledge about the design and control of workflow processes. A workflow pr- ess (or workflow for short) is a specific type of business process, a way of or- nizing work and resources. Workflows are commonly found within large admin- trative organizations such as banks, insurance companies, and governmental agencies. Carrying out the tasks of a workflow in a particular order is required to handle one type of case. Examples of cases are mortgage applications, customer complaints, and claims for unemployment benefits. A workflow used in handling mortgage applications may contain tasks for recording the application, specifying a mortgage proposal, and approving the final policy. The monograph concentrates on four workflow-related issues within the area of Business Process Management; the field of designing and controlling business processes. The first issue is how workflows can be adequately modeled. Workflow mod- ing is an indispensable activity to support any reasoning about workflows. Diff- ent purposes of workflow modeling can be distinguished, such as system ena- ment by Workflow Management Systems, knowledge management, costing, and budgeting. The focus of workflow modeling in this monograph is (a) to support simulation and analysis of workflows and (b) to specify a new workflow design. The main formalism used for the modeling of workflows is the Petri net. Many - isting notions to define several relevant properties have been adopted, such as the workflow net and the soundness notion.

Workflow Automation

This book describes basic concepts of workflow automation in the graphic industry. There are three main chapters: Scope of Workflows in the Printing Industry, Production Models, and Metadata Formats. The book does not describe the individual business and production steps for manufacturing a print product. Rather, it describes what kinds of data exchanges are required between management software and devices to make the automatic execution of processes possible. Primary audience is students studying graphic arts technology, practitioners at printing and manufacturing companies, and computer scientists who are interested in workflow-related matters. It is presupposed that the reader is familiar with the basic procedures in the printing industry as well with the fundamental concepts of IT technology.

Data Access in Workflow Management Systems