Brief Notes on Business Automation & Workflow Management

Dr.  S.  Maurer,  
MBA Professor

Naturally,  to mine data,  there must bë data available.  Believe it or not,  we've seen enterprises that start mining without any data,  in hopes of getting it or collecting it, says Dr.  Elder.  If the information is not there,  no algorithm will find it.

WalMart allows more than 3,500 suppliers,  to access data on their products and perform data analyses.  These suppliers use this data to identify customer buying patterns at the store display level.  They use this information to manage local store inventory and identify new merchandising opportunities.  In 1995,  WalMart computers processed over 1 million complex data queries.

Generally,  data mining [sometimes called data or knowledge discovery] is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue,  cuts costs,  or both.  data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data.  it allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles,  categorize it,  and summarize the relationships identified.  Technically,  data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.

The model you use for your workflow applications is less important than identifying the correct roles and enforcing security.

it also involves running what-if analysis on the processes: What if I have 75% of resources to do the same task? What if I want to do the same job for 80% of the current cost?

In transit visibility is a monitoring concept that applies to transported material as well as to work in process or work in progress,  i.e.,  workflows.  

Many historical projects,  such as the pyramids and cathedrals,  required highly organized labor.  The idea that one can create value by studying the nature of work itself can be attributed to Adam Smith.

Copy all or a portion of the image of the process diagram to the clipboard and paste it into any other document.  

Second,  record the data now,  even if you do not have a data-mining process in place.  You will find most data-mining tool vendors allow for an initialization step in which they incorporate historical data into your data-mining system.

The cultural impact of workflow optimization during this era can be understood through films such as Chaplin's classic Modern Times.  These concepts did not stay confined to the shop floor.  

Two events provided a huge impetus to the development of formalized information workflows.  First,  the field of optimization theory matured and developed mathematical optimization techniques.  Second,  World War II and the Apollo program were unprecedented in their demands for the rational organization of work.

Send Model.  This model uses the messaging features of Notes in supporting workflow applications.  Documents are sent automatically from one person to the next.  Figure 63e1 shows the structure of a workflow application that actively routes data.  The send model is not widely used because it is difficult to build and maintain and provides no extra benefit in most situations.  For example,  the send model requires administrators to maintain e-mail addresses for each role in each application.

Monitoring encompasses the tracking of individual processes so that information on their state can be easily seen and statistics on the performance of one or more processes provided.  

A business Process needs many people and resources.  A good BPM should reduce the number of resources needed for the same process.

The concept of workflow is closely related to several other fields in operations research and other fields that study the nature of work,  either quantitatively or qualitatively,  such as artificial intelligence [in particular,  the sub-discipline of AI planning] and ethnography.