Workflow technology: trade-offs for business process re-engineering

Abstract

The relationship is examined between Business Process Reengineering (BPR), a significant new management trend across all industries, and Workflow Technology a new and rapidly expanding sector of the software market. Since Workflow is a market driven technology, in order to make a meaningful analysis, we start by presenting the current state of the art in workflow technology, as uncovered by our work within the Workflow Management Coalition. Some aspects of workflow are found to be well suited to support BPR, as long as the process being supported meets one of three criteria. Yet other aspects result in serious drawbacks that limit the benefit gained. Some conclusions are made about how workflow technology will have to evolve in order to more fully support the needs of BPR.