Enterprise-Wide Workflow Management

Complex, end-to-end business processes, such as building a Boeing 747, are certainly not the first process a workflow-management infrastructure implements within an enterprise. As an example of an ultimate workflow-implementation goal, however, the process for building a Boeing 747 serves as an excellent source of requirements. WFMS architects can subsequently debate whether a requirement’s solution needs to be implemented by WFMSs or the next architecture level (for example, a workflowmanagement infrastructure that encompasses many WFMSs, integrating them as components). The following case study and discussion highlight the most significant problems an enterprise faces when executing workflows across a heterogeneous computing infrastructure encompassing many different types of WFMSs.