Document-based workflow modeling

Abstract

Reengineering has enabled companies to operate faster and more effectively and to use information technology more productively. A workflow model is useful for business process analysis, and a well-built workflow can help a company streamline its internal processes by reducing overhead. However, very few modeling experts encounter the same case more than once in their entire career; modeling experience is valuable and hard to acquire. Therefore, the results of workflow modeling need to be managed as information assets in a systematic fashion. Reusing these results is likely to enhance the quality of the modeling. The Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) technique is quite helpful for the reuse of knowledge. CBR is a problem solving technique that reuses past cases, experiences, or tacit knowledge. CBR retrieves similar cases from a case base, selects the most similar case among them, adapts this case according to the user``s requirements, and then stores this new case into the case base for future reuse. Although CBR is effective for the reuse of knowledge, it has not been applied to workflow modeling. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a document-based workflow modeling mechanism that employs CBR technique for the effective reuse of design outputs. We call it the Document-based Workflow Modeling Support System: DWMSS. DWMSS employs a workfow model that is based on corporate documents because it is more likely to utilize users`` business requirements in a natural fashion. DWMSS consists of three parts: user interface, engine, and repository. The engine consists of three sub-modules: the case base manager, case-based modeler, and vocabulary base manager. The repository is proposed to support the CBR process, which consists of two bases: the case base and the vocabulary base. DWMSS employs two modeling strategies: modeling by domain-dependent case searches and modeling by CBR. These modeling processes are illustrated using a real-life case to demonstrate the usefulness o...