A Business Process Environment Supporting Collaborative Planning

Abstract

A model for collaborative work process and a graphical language to support this model is presented. The model allows for informal flow of communications and flexible access to information along with a formal flow of responsibility. This approach results in a model of a work process in terms of the communications that team members must make in order to coordinate their tasks. The systems is designed with the intent that the planning activity itself is accomplished in a collaborative way, with many people having input to and control over different parts of the plan. This is contrasted to approaches where the work process is modeled according to the work being done and where the process is either fixed or is entered by a single person. Information technology has proven to be a great aid in automating and accelerating well defined production activi-ties. While computers have become relatively ubiquitous in the office setting, there is a lack of conclusive evidence