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System

Kimura Orie

Scho ol of Information Science,

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

February 14, 1997

Keywords: WorkowManagement System, Real WorldWorkow,Management of

WorkProgress Status, PracticalUse about Works.

In the present age of preparing for realization of multimedia network, groupware at-

tracts attention these days asa software tool for ndinga solution by group. Generally,

groupware is a computer system which supports a certain group whose memb ers have a

common goal and work for achieving it, and provides an interface for co operative envi-

ronment for these memb ers. Recently, many workow management systems have b een

suggested by some corporations, as a part of BPR(Business Process Reengineering), for

increasing intellectul pro ductivity and improving quality of work in an oce, and they

attract a great deal of attention. They function as automatic applications for a xed

workow inanoce.

Ingeneral,workowmanagementsystemcan bedenedas\asystemthatdesignsthe

series of work procedure and executes that procedure and manage all works". To put it

concretely, the system has the following functions.

Design Describing persons who engaged in the work and the contents of the work and

the ow amongthese person.

Execute Deliveringe-mailtoaccelerateworkprogressasgivenintheworkowdenition.

Manage Managingdeadline of worksand progressstatus.

If the workow management system can be realized, there are some advantages as

follows:

The ow of allworks is represented clearly.

The role of each memb er in the groupis represented clearly.

Copyright c

1997byKimuraOrie

Wewill have atrigger tomaking a database of information related with the work.

In previous workow management systems, they require works to be represented con-

structiveandclearly,and informationtoberepresentedinacomputer. However,the real

world workscontainmanyexceptional processesthat cannot b erepresented constructive

and clearly. Furthermore,thereare many cases that allinformationcan not representon

a computer. Therefore, it is dicult to apply such previous systems to works including

information whichcan not be representedona computer.

Moreover,theworkowthathasalreadynishedwillhavealotofknowledgeconcerned

with works. However, there is no function in previous systems, that can use practically

that knowledge.

Based on these problems of previous workow management systems, we propose a

model of real world workowmanagement. This mo del havesome functions of previous

workowmanagementsystems: designing,executingandmanagingworkow. Inaddition,

they also havethe following functions.

Integratinginformation owthatcan berepresentedonacomputerand worksthat

can not b e represented on a computer (ex. documents and works that exist in the

real world not ina computer),and managingworkprogress status robustly.

Utilizing knowledgeof worksfor next works,practically.

We call it "Real world workow" which occupies information both on a computer

and not on a computer. We distinguish it from a workow that has been studied and

develop ed.

Designingworkowisoneofimportantfunctionsofworkowmanagementsystems. A

realworldworkowneedsexplicitrepresentationofthecontentsofworksperformedinthe

realworldandinformationowintherealworld. Thedesignmethodsproposedpreviously

can represent only information on the computer, such as the person who executes each

tasks,the contentsoftasksand electronic informationowand soon. However,theycan

not represent a real worldworkow. In this thesis, we formalize them and design a real

world workowby using our formalization.

Weselectedand implementedasystem that isused ontrial forcontrollingand super-

vising expensesof laboratory budgetsin our universityas anexamplefor realization of a

modelofrealworldworkowmanagement. Werealizeafunctionmanagingworkprogress

statusbyinputting progressstatusbyworkersintothe system. Thesestatus containreal

world work status and electoric information ow. As a result, this system can manage

progressstatusthatiswellsynchronizedbothofthem. Furthermore,werealizeafunction

to storage knowledge and refer it. The knowledge means results and processes of each

workow.

We evaluatedthe usefulness of our model using this system. To do this experiment,

we append our system tothe existing system for controllingand sup ervising expenses of

laboratorybugetsinour university. In thisexp eriment,thereare sometime lags b etween

inputted date as progress status and real date, such asa workerforgot to input progress

worldandelectricworld. However,weshouldallowakindofexceptionalprocessingwhich

mayhappenatarealocework,andmanageprogressstatusrobustly. Previousworkow

management systems can not deal with this sudden exception like this, but our model

can dothis.

As future works, (1) our model is applied tothe other workareas, (2) someimprove-

mentsare neededand (3) the model is testedon more largersituation.