By William Pacino
Science fiction, since its birth at the turn of the 20th century with author H.G. Wells, has consistently predicted that "The computer, with its artificial intelligence, will do its work automatically." Now, near the turn of a new century, the hot technology in computing is "workflow automation." Sound familiar?
Realizing that there is a longer than expected lag in introduction of new technology and acceptance of that technology, computer "automation" has begun to catch up with H.G. Wells' prophecy.
An example of workflow software
To file an expense report, you collect paper receipts, fill in a paper expense report, and hand it to a supervisor. The supervisor sends it to accounting, where employees enter the amount spent into a general ledger application on a PC or host-based system, and it becomes one item in an operating department's monthly budget. From there, an account is debited and a reimbursement check is sent to the person who ran up the expenses.
You can automate this entire process with workflow software. The method would involve scanning receipts into a PC application and attaching them to an electronic expense form. With a single keystroke, you could route this form to a supervisor, who would attach his or her digital signature to it, enter the report total in a personal monthly expense spreadsheet, and send the form to the accounting department. A process that required mailing forms and took several days now occurs completely online and takes only a few hours.
More sophisticated workflow applications automate complex paper trails, such as those found in insurance companies or banks, and offer significant improvements in customer service, reducing errors and handling costs.
The workflow application would also keep track of who has the document at any given time and set time limits for each person in the processing chain. As one workflow user explained, "... once a company replaces paper documents with electronic images, files no longer fit in employee in-boxes or file cabinets. Workflow software now monitors the status of these electronic documents and gives the user the power to manipulate and use these documents."
Smart strategies
Workflow automation can be defined as a series of manual or automated procedures that processes information, changes its state or condition, and deposits that information somewhere. We can manage some of this information in parallel processes rather than sequentially.
In today's software-based work environments, particularly where users are connected by a network, many part of the business process are automated. However, the actual routing of work or information from step to step in the procedure may still be largely manual. Workflow software takes the manual steps in a sequence of actions and automates them for increased efficiency and accuracy.
Simply accelerating existing procedures through the power of the computer by duplicating the manual flow of work from person to person or department to department does not necessarily improve the process of managing information it merely reinforces established work patterns. If a company adopts workflow automation, it may want to examine itself and re-engineer its business practices.
Software-based workflow
In any software-based environment, we are continuously introducing or creating information. Users are entering data, and documents are arriving to be transcribed, filed or routed. The information's origination must include some source of input by which you can place it into the workflow process. In a manual workflow environment, the source of input would be the in-box on a desk; on a computer, it may be an electronic in-box, mailbox, or work queue. In addition, someone or some process must place objects (word and image documents, word processing files, faxes, e-mail, etc.) into this input source. Once you place the information in the electronic in-box, mailbox, or work queue, you can handle the workflow in an automated fashion.
Automated workflow can filter information from an input source, make decisions based on rules, and cause the information object to move to the next logical step in the workflow process.
Workflow architecture
There are four approaches to an actual automated workflow.
Impact on a network
Because the core of any workflow processor is executing logic and updating tables, the workflow processor can handle several logical tests per second and perform routing at the same time. Other actions include updating data tables, moving documents around the network, creating new folders, and retrieving documents from other servers. When performing routing tasks, a properly designed workflow processor will move only data and pointers to documents not the actual documents. The workflow processor can significantly increase the traffic on the LAN and the file server. However, the structured nature of a workflow environment may reduce random and unnecessary access to data and fields. The information is queued for each user and task that needs it, rather than users randomly requesting it when they believe they need it.
Workflow-enhanced applications
Workflow automation responds to "events", or tasks that a computer user executes. When events take place, workflow automation knows what the next step is, as well as how to route the completed task of the computer user to the next individual in the process chain. A well-designed workflow application can significantly decrease the time it takes to perform a task. For instance, processing an insurance claim may require a dozen different forms compiled by a variety of departments in a series of steps. Most insurance companies manually complete these forms and route them using internal mail systems. Workflow software would automatically generate the forms, complete portions of each document, and move documents from department to epartment.
Workflow automation applications facilitate and speed task execution, eliminate redundant effort, and reduce error. The final word on workflow automation: It helps eliminate business process activities that merely add costs rather than value.
Enable, integrate, automate this time, workflow automation is science fact, not science fiction.