Project No.: 5003-045356 01.07.96 - 31.12.99

Project leader: Prof. Klaus Dittrich, Institut für Informatik, University of Zurich
e-mail: dittrich@ifi.unizh.ch

Name of project: SWORDIES: Swiss workflow management in distributed environments

Partners:
Prof. Gerhard Knolmayer, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, University of Bern
Peter Bachmann, CSS-Versicherungen (a health insurance company), Lucerne
Bernhard Fritz, Leica AG, Heerbrugg

Funding: Sfr 714,863.-

Summary:
Until recently, many application systems in business were developed in line with organizational subunits. As a result, IT support was often not optimally attuned to the core processes. However, adequate IT support is a major success factor. Business process re-engineering (BPR) projects are concerned with integrating existing components of received systems with newly developed systems to produce a better process orientation. Process routines are supported by workflow management systems (WFMS). An environment that comprises the cooperating applications and people is termed a cooperative process-oriented environment (CPE).

The present project ("Swiss Workflow Management in Distributed Environments") examines the systematic development of such a CPE. It comprises the following steps:

• analysis of business processes and the organizational structure;
• conceptional business process meta-model;
• mapping the conceptional process model onto a logical CPE model;
• production of the CPE model by a WMFS core.

Phase one consisted in analysing the requirements in accordance with the Swordies goals, and evaluating 11 marketable systems. Demands on workflow systems were also identified in order to master the problem of the heterogeneous IT environment. In addition, the chief requirements of a language to describe conceptional workflow meta models were drawn up. As regards the design and implementation of a workflow system, the software architecture was defined and initial implementation steps were carried out.

In the continuation phase, the industrial partners will apply the solutions achieved to practical problems. The work done at the University of Bern is concerned with refining the representation of business processes. At the University of Zurich, a software engineering method is being drawn up to integrate existing systems into the workflow system architecture, taking into consideration the heterogeneity of informatics environments and a prototypical software development environment together with the underlying repository developed.

Cooperation:
Work on this integrated research project is divided among the partners as follows:

• analysis of business processes by the industrial partners (CSS-Versicherungen; Integral Process, Leica);
• the conceptional business process meta-model is being developed by the institute of business information technology of the University of Bern (Prof. Knolmayer); the meta-model for the CPE integration and architecture and its implementation in a WFMS core is in the hands of the University of Zurich’s database technology unit (Prof. Dittrich).