Excellence in Practice, Volume IV
Innovation and Excellence in Workflow and Knowledge Management
Published OCTOBER 2000

Author: Layna Fischer
ISBN 0-9640233-9-3
Pages: 280

Price: US $50.00
Size: 7" x 10"

Quality hardcover. Illustrations, charts, references, appendices, bibliography, index.

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The criteria for the case studies in this book:

Each case study received a prestigious Excellence in Workflow Award based on the the following:

• Innovation encompasses the innovative use of technology for strategic business objectives; the complexity of the underlying business process and IT architecture; the creative and successful deployment of advanced workflow and imaging concepts; and process innovations through business process reengineering and/or continuous improvements

• Hallmarks of a successful implementation include extensive user and line management involvement in the project while successfully managing change during the implementation process. Factors impacting the level of difficulty in achieving a successful implementation include the system complexity; integration with other advanced technologies; and the scope and scale of the implementation (e.g. size, geography, inter-company processes). 

• Impact is the bottom line, answering the question “what benefits does workflow deliver to the business?” Examples of potential benefits include: productivity improvements; cost savings; increased revenues; product enhancements; improved customer service; improved quality; strategic impact to the organization’s mission; enabling culture change; and—most importantly—changing the company’s competitive position in the market. The visionary focus is now toward strategic benefits, in contrast to marginal cost savings and productivity enhancements.

Readers of these detailed case studies can find out more about:

• Their system application, what the system is used for, who are the users and what the job entails

• What were their key motivations

• Their system configuration (number, and type of software, servers, scanners, printers, storage devices, etc., including the identities of the vendors and integrators involved)

• The number of users currently on the system and number of users planned.

• How the company has been impacted by their new system; cost savings, ROI and increased productivity improvements, competitive advantage gained, and how they managed to move the goal posts for their industry.

• Their implementation process and methodology, the project team, and the change management and business process reengineering issues they addressed.

• How these companies managed both their overall technological and business innovations.

Table of Contents

• Bull Worldwide Information Systems (Echirolles, France) Finalist, Workflow
• Burlington Insurance Group/IFG Companies (Burlington, NC) Finalist, Workflow
• Convergys (Cincinnati, OH) Finalist, Workflow
• Fast Forward (Johannesburg, South Africa) Silver Workflow Award
• IBM (Somers, NY) Silver Knowledge Management Award
• Irish Permanent (Dublin, Ireland) Finalist, Workflow
• J. Sainsbury (London, United Kingdom) Finalist, Workflow
• La Poste (Paris, France) Gold Workflow Award
• Lewisham (Catford, England) Finalist, Workflow
• Lubrizol (Wickliffe, OH) Silver Workflow Award
• Olgivy & Mather (New York, NY) Finalist, Knowledge Management
• Phillips Fox (Sydney, Australia) Gold Knowledge Management Award
• Prudential Real Estate and Relocation (Irvine, CA) Gold Workflow Award
• Saambou (Pretoria, South Africa) Gold Workflow Award
• Sprint (Overland Park, KS) Finalist, Knowledge Management

Guest Chapters

• Introduction: Workflow Goes Mainstream
  Connie Moore, Giga Information Group, with Contributing Analyst, Mike Gilpin
  Because application or business integration solutions are often driven by business initiatives like e-commerce or supply chain management, economic impact from their use is often compelling. The choices come down to which solution offers the fastest time to market while providing robust infrastructure that can support required service levels and keeps cost of ownership to a bearable level. This chapter examines the current state of the market, providing a road map for understanding which solutions are best suited to different integration scenarios.
• Three Years of Workflow Technology Evolution
  Martin Ader, Principal of Workflow & Groupware Strategies, France,  and author of the highly acclaimed Comparative Analysis of Workflow Products, looks at how Workflow technology is now taking full benefits of EAI middleware for application integration. It is available as object components for tighter integration. And finally document management is better supported under a portal approach umbrella. Workflow products now efficiently combine database, client/server, distribution, visual programming, scripting, home and mobile work, HTML support, advanced user interface techniques, and application integration from legacy systems to document management.
• The Workflow Market: A Global Perspective for 2000
  Priscilla Emery, Senior Vice President, Association for Information and Image Management International (AIIM), presents some of the results of AIIM’s annual worldwide study to provide a status of the document technologies marketplace, from both a user and a supplier perspective.  In 2000, AIIM published detailed research into the Workflow market based on a survey conducted by GartnerGroup.  The resulting information can provide insight on a global perspective based on the growth and uptake of the workflow market by understanding where workflow is being implemented and user perceptions on why and how they buy workflow products.
• Embedded vs. Autonomous Workflow—Putting Paradigms into Perspective
  Michael zur Muehlen, University of Muenster, Germany and Rob Allen Open Image Systems, Inc. United Kingdom
  Workflow is the automation of a business process, in whole or in part, during which documents, information, or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a software representation of the process logic, the workflow model. With the advent of new requirements for workflow engines to inter-operate for tasks such as Supply Chain Management, it is important for the market to be able to distinguish between inaccessible rules-based application components, and workflow engines, be they embedded or not. This paper distinguishes, at a high level, the differences between the architectures of workflow management system. Its main function is to clarify the segmentation between autonomous and embedded workflow deployments.
• Workflow—The "Missing Link" In E-Commerce
  Jon Pyke, CTO Staffware Plc and Chair, Workflow Management Coaltion
  Companies across the globe are spending millions on developing eCommerce projects and many of them have found that their initial objectives of reducing costs while increasing productivity have not been achieved. This is often because process automation is either not in place, or does not run through the entire line of necessary actions required in order to fulfill an operational request. Quite simply, workflow automates the procedures within an organization. Mr. Pyke explains how workflow software adds control mechanisms to the existing system to ensure that the appropriate tasks are handled at the right time, by the right person and in the right order. In addition to its task management role, workflow also facilitates gathering of information and improved data flow, which benefits users throughout the organization.

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