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Sunday 20 December 2015

Business process management – What is Workflow?

What is Workflow?

Workflow refers to the workflow to continue to achieve a task or work default. It is defined as a sequence of tasks of a business process. Its definition and control can be manual, computerised or mixed. Organizes and controls tasks, resources, and rules necessary to complete the process of business. 

New trends when it comes to regulating organizations, make the Workflow a key tool to achieve greater agility and increase the decentralization of administrative and commercial activities. 

The evolution of Workflow is to seek the maximum automation of the processes of labour and total control of the different stages, during which documents, information or tasks passed from one participant to another, according to rules or procedures previously defined. 

Over time, various software applications have been developed, many of them have evolved from management systems of imaging, document management systems, e-mail and database systems. 

Applications/systems Workflow, efficient workflows

 workflow management tools  automate the sequence of actions, activities or tasks in the implementation of the process, allow you to track each stage of it and provide the necessary tools for their control or management of the workflow. 

A Workflow System goes beyond and is characterized, mainly, by a proper integration with existing information systems: database, document management, messaging, ERP, etc., allowing the expansion of a workflow, a simple process for the integration of several interrelated business processes. 

In the market there are different types of Workflow tools, the main ones are: corporate Workflow, application Workflow, Workflow documentary and production WorkflowSome of them are limited to their area in particular and others allow communication with external applications in a way synchronous (waiting for an answer before proceeding) or asynchronous (only to leave a “message” and retrieves the response below). 

Today there are new tools and highly sophisticated systems, making further increases in the efficiency of business processes, we refer to ‘group tools’ that include key pieces of automation of administrative processes (Workflow) and document management-related. 

It is currently very important to access information quickly and effectively. As a general rule the information tends to be in different formats, depending on whether it is a document of a type or other, for example paper or a programme Word (.doc) document, or an image (.jpg,. gif.), which creates a problem of accessibility to them. The time we lose when it comes to access and retrieve information is much less using a tool Workflow integrated with other products that allow access computerized information related to the defined workflow, resulting in a significant in terms of cost reduction and increased productivity. 

Workflow systems support circuit files directly over a network of computers, using the “Workflow Engine” located on the network server, records are managed according to rules specific to facilitating the tasks of users. Documents that are scanned and stored can be recovered for analysis or management in a simple and fast thanks to the different utilities offered by the system. 

Benefits of the Workflow or workflow

According to the business processes that we implement in the company the benefits of workflows can be:
  • Saving time and improving productivity and efficiency of the company, the automation of many business processes.
  • Improvement of process control through the standardization of working methods.
  • Best care and service to the customer; an increase in the consistency of the processes leads to greater predictability in levels of response to customers.
  • Improvement in the processes; greater flexibility in accordance with business needs.
  • Optimization of the circulation of internal information with customers and suppliers.
  • Integration of business processes.
The systems of Workflow or workflow, also known as BPMS (Business Process Management Systems / business process management systems) have the aim of bringing people, processes, and machines, saving time and speeding up the realization of the work.
They also facilitate the automation of the workflows between processes, being able to integrate these in the company according to specific strategies. 
Workflow example: A workflow of a company
Let’s see how a major pharmaceutical company located in Barcelona benefits of Workflow system in their business processes. 
This company, whose main office is located in the Centre of Barcelona, has several local and two production sites in the outskirts of the city. 

Laboratory contracted out to three companies for the manufacture of certain components of its product range and two external companies for the cleaning of its premises and the security service. 

As you might expect, the laboratory has a wide variety of business and production processes, ranging from manual and simple workflows to complex and interrelated business processes. Some are only described as manual work procedures, but the vast majority are defined centrally in your engine of Workflow, automating the most execution and control. 

We will focus on a simplified example, on the basis of an order coming from a wholesaler. 

This lab enter very different type documents; mostly on paper, so the first thing you need to do the company is digitizing the information that reaches you and capture important data to store them and archive them in a format that is able to be read by other programs. In order to allow a controlled management, each location scanned documents locally, it extracts predefined information and is stored in the central database of the Workflow Engine. 

Not mean that you have to digitize all documentation of the company, both internally and externally, but it should / can be scanned only the necessary information, for their subsequent management, automation and optimization allowing a full tracking of your workflow. 

In our case, the order form is standardised, and to digitize it, can be removed automatically the necessary information, as well as the number of wholesalers, products and quantities ordered. It is sent to this wholesale merchandise on Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week. Today is Monday. 
  1. The Workflow System see stocks in the stock. 
    Products that are in store subtracts them orders and marks them as reserved for this client.
  2. The application then sends an email to the Department of shipping of goods. This, in turn, processes shipping consulting products marked for this wholesale, automatically generates the waybill and prepares the shipment for Tuesday. Reading the barcodes of the shipped products changes the condition of the product for this client. If until Tuesday products has not been processed yet, the Workflow sends a notice to a superior stay.
  3. Workflow Engine, also check where each product is manufactured, so that it also automatically updates the planning for each production facility, and sends emails with the requested product information to each of the subcontractors.
  4. A from this moment the Workflow System consultation database the Monday and Wednesday to check if you have entered the merchandise in the store for this wholesaler and, if so, repeat steps 1 and 2. If passed a defined period has not received the merchandise in the store, the system executes the processes defined for each case. E.g. send an email of remembrance to subcontractors, and secondly to the higher court. To make this work is updated database, through the reading of barcodes for each product, when it enters the warehouse. In the case of subcontractors, it digitizes the delivery note and removed the information to update the stock.
  5. Naturally, the billing and payments of invoices also leverage the process information stored in the database of the Workflow System.
    When the amount of the sent goods exceeds a certain limit, is automatically generated a bill for a series of shipments. On the other hand, when the invoice of the outsourced company, the corresponding shipment data are automatically compared and, if there are no discrepancies, an email is sent to responsible for the approval of payments. The approval, in turn, generates sending another email to warn of pending payment.
As we have seen, the process of ordering and delivery of goods affects several internal departments and external parts of the company. It is a relatively complex and largely automated Workflow. It could be automated more if customers place orders directly from an application on the Internet. And all this, without modifying the workflow defined in the Workflow Engine. 

The laboratory should pay the two companies that has subcontracted, for cleaning of the buildings security. This leverages already defined workflow modules, streamlining, in this way, the necessary procedures and increasing the efficiency of the company. Other many processes can benefit from the implementation of the Workflow. 

Pixelware offers you a solution, based on components of Workflow, whose main advantages are focused on increasing the performance and productivity of work of your company, an increase in control of the process through the workflows of the company track and greater agility of all business processes. 

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