Business Process Implementation: Building Workflow Systems (ACM Press) (Hardcover)

Product Description
The speed with which today's businesses have to adapt to ever-changing circumstances and the complexity required to remain ahead in a competitive environment have forced the development of automated business process systems. Business Process Implementation describes a new method for designing and implementing office workflow systems.

This method was developed by Graham Twaddle and his colleagues, and has been analysed and described by Michael Jackson, one of the pre-eminent contributors to current software development practices. It has been tried and tested by Sherwood International UK who have incorporated it into their award-winning Logicware software support system.

The method consists of a carefully crafted combination of data and process modelling that permits highly parallel, and therefore highly efficient and flexible workflow. Moreover, it embodies a novel approach to database design and implementation that gives many of the benefits usually ascribed to object orientation but requires only a conventional relational database environment.

Key Features of the book include:

• A clear and insightful description of the method, its range of applicability and its use.
• Innovative diagram and textual notations for data and process modelling.
• A thorough description of the Logicware software support system which provides insight into implementation issues and shows how to mechanize and simplify development.
• Questions at the end of each chapter, providing readers with an opportunity to check their understanding of the concepts involved.

 
This book will be invaluable for anyone who has to develop and use business systems for information and administration and especially to those working in an environment where office workflow is an important concern. It will provide the reader with a way of clearly documenting the processes and process-related knowledge that are the end result of a Business Process Reengineering study. It also provides an approach to implementing the reengineered processes that has been tried and tested successfully in large systems for critical business applications.

From the Author
I hope this helps model complex business processes
It is often hard to see how to implement a complex business process. This is because although there are many ways to implement data driven or object driven designs there are few approaches to implementing process driven workflows. While many systems implement workflow as a separate item from the application one of our goals was to implement the two together so that they could never get out of step, and so that the whole business process could be considered regardless of the part the computer systems played in it. I hope this approach helps and leads to an easier life for those implementing such systems.

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3 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 3.0 out of 5 stars Hardback slim volume, not a cook-book. Use your boss's money, 12 Nov 2001 By A Customer In a skimpy 238 (including index etc) A5-ish pages, this book describes what workflow is about, using the example of life assurance, and explains the concepts of tasks, stages etc. It describes a notation. It then spends a lot of time discussing entity modelling. I'm a techie, I wanted tips on how to design a workflow engine. The book claims to present a 'method', a large part of which is standard entity modelling, but really only sketches the outline of a method and a notation, you would have to fill in a lot of gaps. It will take considerable effort for me to work out the advantages of this notation over the standard Petri nets and state transition notations, the authors should have attempted to do this. There are a few useful nuggets for me in two of the nine chapters, but I already had some idea of what workflow is and already know how to design a relational database, so I feel I didn't get my money's worth. I suppose the relevant bits may reward re-reading and turn out to be worth it. However, if money is no object, or if you are a non-IT person wanting to buy a workflow system, then it's worth a look. Would be a very, very good book for a university library, though. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A complete overview of workflow based systems, 10 Aug 2001 By  nick.amis@pm-group.co.uk (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews This book provides a rare look at the internal workings of complex workflow applications. It goes into just enough details to give the reader a good understanding of the principles of workflow, as well as describing how these principles might be applied in the production of a commercial workflow application. Pity there is no working examples on an accompanying CD, but that would be just giving away a little too much! Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   0 of 1 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars A Practical Guide for the application of Business Process, 8 Jan 2001 By A Customer I have found this book to be very practical and effective in a project environment, quoting examples and practical guidelines where necessary. The pointers from the book can be applied to your practical environment which can be useful to a professional from any business background. Good book for people stepping into the world of Business Process Implementation. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 3 customer reviews...		Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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