Fundamental Concepts for Workflow Automation in Practice

Transcription

1 Fundamental Concets for Workflow Automation in Practice Stef Joosten and Sjaak Brinkkemer Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, University of Twente, The Netherlands March 12, 1995 This aer is submitted to the ICIS 95 conference, Amsterdam, December Mailing Address Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box AE ENSCHEDE The Netherlands tel fax internet: Keywords workflow suort systems, business rocess re-engineering, collaborative work systems, field study. ISRL categories: DD0402, HA12, AI

2 Fundamental Concets for Workflow Automation in Practice Abstract Workflow systems are catching on raidly due to the success of many workflow-based innovations in ractice. Streamlining or even redesigning workflows in the rimary business is observed to be effective in organisations that have roblems coordinating work. In order to learn how and why workflow management systems are built, twelve organisations that use workflow systems have been analysed. The observations done in this roject have led to the definition of terms, a modelling technique and knowledge about the innovation rocess of imlementing automated workflow. This aer is interesting for methodologists who want to learn how workflow analysis can be done, for managers who want to learn what workflow means in ractice, and for researchers to learn which ractical roblems require research attention. Keywords: workflow suort systems, business rocess re-engineering, collaborative work systems, field study. ISRL categories: DD0402, HA12, AI Introduction In order to evaluate the ractical significance of workflow, a roject under the name of WA-12 was set u during the summer of Twelve organisations with actual workflow exerience were found to cooerate in this emirical research roject. The urose of the research roject was to learn about the way in which workflow rojects differ from other rojects and to learn from the analysis and design rocesses that are carried out during the innovation. The ultimate goal is to develo an emirical basis uon which a method for workflow analysis and design can be built. Workflow management deals with the coordination of roductive work in a business rocess. The workflow aradigm is characterised by: a focus on the interaction between actors rather than the activities themselves; a number of different eole and organisational units being involved; boundary sanning both within and outside the organisation; integration of rocedures and tools. Actors can be individuals, grous or machines, which exlains why workflow research is a combination of comuter science and business science. In the turbulent world of information systems technology, workflow is ositioned as a new breakthrough in administrative organisations. Vendors advertise advantages such as increased rocessing flexibility, shorter rocessing times, imroved customer service, imroved resource management, etc. Literature study [13] has shown that a majority of ublications originates from vendor organisations, resulting in a large suly of case studies and tool-oriented articles. As a consequence, it is not easy to find out what workflow means in ractice. 1

3 2 Background There are different tyes of research related to workflow systems: technical, concetual, organisational and methodological. Technical research is focused on finding technical rimitives to suort workflows. An examle is the TriGSflow system in which workflows are organised on the basis of active objects [14]. Client/server architectures are being studied in order to enable workflow servers at different locations to cooerate [22]. Business transactions aear to be more comlicated than database transactions. Consequently, researchers are looking into new transaction models [3, 2, 6]. Concetual research is conducted in order to describe workflows effectively and efficiently. The work of Winograd and Flores [23] about seech acts has started an imortant new develoment, leading to the Action Workflow Aroach [18]. Other aroaches are based on Petri-nets [11]. Many tools, however, use their own concetual framework such as [16]. Research in organisational and business sciences is done to find ways in which workflow tools are best exloited. Business rocess reengineering is a well known develoment in this area [10, 4]. The analogy with logistics has been noticed and used as a starting oint for innovation of work rocedures [24, 9]. Methodological research is motivated by the belief that workflow management reresents a new aradigm. This justifies the search for new methods [1, 7, 8]. Research about the use of workflow in ractice is an aarent omission in this overview. Available case studies are often used to advocate a secific tool. Comarative case studies are rare. Yet, if a method for the design and imlementation of workflow systems is to succeed, it must take into account what ractitioners have learned the hard way. The WA-12 roject is based on this observation. It was intended to describe the exerience with workflow rojects in order to learn methodological asects that are imortant for workflow analysis and design. 3 Research Aroach A research roject like WA-12, set out to generate a descritive theory and to exlain the concets of workflow requires a qualitative research aroach (e.g. grounded theory [17]). It must focus on the develoment of a context-based descrition of a henomenon together with exlanations. The causality based methods, using variance theory, are less suitable for this tye of research [20]. Research questions of the WA-12 roject have been refined by defining the following asects of interest: terminology, modelling techniques, introduction of the workflow system and integration. In the selection of sites both differences and similarities were considered. The similarities should relicate the essence of the theory, being the actual use of techniques to analyse workflows. The differences were sought in the nature of workflows, the tye of organisation and the way of suorting workflows. As a ossible flaw in site selection, the orientation towards tools was identified. To revent this from haening, suitable cases were sought with the hel of system architects rather than tool vendors. The acquisition hase was suorted by DCE Nederland B.V., an indeendent consulting organisation that secialises on workflow. The requirements for articiation were demonstrable exerience with workflow oen attitude towards researchers going through the organisation 2

4 numbers yes no no resonse total rocess consultancy Table 1: Organisations aroached for WA-12 These requirements exclude organisations that were still in the lanning hase. Table 1 gives the numbers of organisations that were aroached for articiation in WA-12. The organisations in the category rocess are the actual workflow rocesses. Organisations in the category consultancy are comanies that articiated in ointing out the locations where workflow rojects are executed. In this way we have often been in touch with the original designers of a workflow alication. The rocess to be studied was identified during the acquisition hase in order to ensure a focus on the rocess rather than the tools. Data collection was based on a variety of research techniques: questionnaires, unstructured and semistructured interviews, observation and documentation study. The choice and the use of techniques was different for all cases to accommodate for the different situations encountered. Less interviews could be done in organisation that roduced useful written information (e.g. design - or decision documents). Where documentation fell short, interviews were conducted to fill the gas. It turned out that the differences were larger than anticiated, making the questionnaires almost useless. The use of different techniques at the same time is useful to generate theory, because it allows for verification of results [5]. Every contact with articiating organisations has been coordinated with a contact-erson, to ensure maximal cooerativeness in the organisation. Organisations were visited several times during the data collection hase. Each organisation has received an elaborate rivate reort on its own situation. Furthermore, the final WA-12 reort [12] has been resented to the articiants in the form of a research monograh.. 4 Research Results The main results of this research roject are in the comarisons of the twelve cases, to be receded by short descritions in the following table. The second column of this table contains three attributes of each rocess. Firstly, it contains Leifer s classification [15] in stand-alone, centralised, distributed and decentralised systems. Secondly, Mintzberg s tyology [19] as simle structure, machine bureaucracy, rofessional bureaucracy, divisionalised form and adhocracy is given. Lastly, the main roblem is given that lies at the root of the workflow innovation. 1. Suly and administration of car insurances at a bank. This roject grew out of the need to maintain insurance folders electronically on a document imaging system. At the time of research, simle workflows are being suorted. The system is living u to its exectations. 2. Allocation and administration of domestic facilities in a large research laboratory of a major multinational concern. The workflow is about allocation of rooms, name shields, telehone and LAN connections, issuing of keys, etc. in an environment of dynamic research team formation, large numbers of eole and rojects and tight security measures. At the time of research, the system was oerational for a year. The roject is considered a success. distributed system, machine bureaucracy, archiving roblem distributed system, machine bureaucracy, integration roblem 3

5 3. Selling and maintaining leasing arrangements at a leasing comany. A remarkable feat of this roject is that a large number of relatively small workflows has been (re-)designed for workflow, among which the design of a workflow itself. At the time of research, the system was about to be rolled out to the user organisation. 4. Alications at an insurance comany for the medical rofession. The urose of the roject was to increase the roduct quality by decreasing throughut delays and enhancing customer service. This involved an imaging system in order to get the rimary information stream on an electronic infrastructure. The roject is considered successful, although it has more characteristics of imaging than workflow. The distinction between the two is not always made in ractice. At the time of research, the system was oerational for over a year. 5. Filing financial reorts of comanies at a chamber of commerce. The roject develoment went relatively smooth due to thorough rearation and early commitment of emloyees. The roject was just oerational when this research started. 6. Mortgage administration in an investment comany. This workflow involves all activities starting with a request for a mortgage down to the final wraing u. The develoed systemwas being imlemented within the organisation at the time of research. 7. Mortgage administration at an insurance comany. This rocess was meant to solve roblems with the inaccessibility of aer files, shortage of storage caacity and serious roblems with the quality of work. In a highly ambitious roject which took no longer than a year, a new technical infrastructure together with imaging and workflow functionality has been designed and introduced. Although the introduction was not comleted at the time of research, it was clear already that the roject goals were met. 8. Granting of tenant subsidies at a governmental deartment. As an innovation, this roject was successful. However, it turned out that it was more a document automation roject than actual workflow. Nevertheless, some workflow asects are visible in the roject. 9. Archiving of documents at a rovincial government. The roject was started because of archiving roblems, and aimed at a large scale introduction of document imaging. A workflow in the rimary rocess was selected as a ilot to demonstrate the workflow caabilities. The roject has a troublesomehistory, mainly caused by a lack of commitment and continuity. 10. Social insurances administration at an administrative service organisation. The roject goals were to increase the efficiency in the rocess and to offer better service to customers. At the time of research, the roject was in its introduction hase. The roject ran into several delays due to the sheer size of the rocess. The roject goals are still exected to be achieved. 11. Provision of credit-worthiness information at a commercial credit insurance comany. At the time of research, this roject was in use for about half a year. It was intended to demonstrate the otention of workflow management to the organisation, and was successful in this resect. distributed system, machine bureaucracy, roblems with control centralised system,rofessional bureaucracy, roblems with throughut and archiving distributed system, rofessionalbureaucracy, archiving roblem distributed system, rofessionalbureaucracy, archiving roblem distributed system, divisionalised form, roblems with throughutand quality of data centralised system,rofessional bureaucracy, roblems with malfunctioning system distributed system, machine bureaucracy, archiving roblems centralised system, machine bureaucracy, roblems with client focus and quality of data distributed system, rofessionalbureaucracy, throughut roblem 4

6 12. Issuing of environmental licences and industrial waste disensations in a rovincial government. This organisation is often confronted with changes in rocedures that are dictated by olitical develoments. The roject took excessively long, and clear cut roject goals were never defined. Nevertheless, limited results were achieved. centralised system, machine bureaucracy, archiving roblem The asects of interest identified in the research aroach are terminology, modelling techniques, introduction of the workflow system, integration and organisation. A selection of the results for each of these asects is given. For a comlete account we refer to [12]. In analysing documents and interview reorts for the use of terms, we found a great deal of consensus about the nature of workflow. Although eole in different grous in different organisations often use different words, the analysis did not uncover any concetual disagreements about the nature of workflow. This analysis resulted in figure 1, which shows the concetual framework of workflow management in the form of an ER-diagram. These concets have been given mutually consistent definitions, leading to the object subrocess of carries element of rocess event element of triggers activity erforms resonsible actor definition of the concet of workflow: Figure 1: ER Model of Concets Definition 1 (workflow) A workflow is a system whose elements are activities, related to one another by a trigger relation and triggered by external events, which reresents a business rocess starting with a commitment and ending with the termination of that commitment. Next to terminology, techniques and methods that are used in ractice have been studied in order to find out what analysts do in order to chart the situation. Table 2 gives an overview of modelling techniques used in the different cases. In the absence of modelling techniques esecially for workflow, most organisations used conventional tools and techniques, such as modelling of the rocess, the control flow, the dataflow, state transitions, etc. In order to comare the different modelling techniques, we have divided them in techniques for modelling data (e.g. entity-relationshi modelling), rocess (e.g. dataflow, rocess hierarchy), control (e.g. flowchart, triggers, state transition) and organisation (e.g. organigram). Besides, the aroach was classified as either informal, grahical or formal. Formal secification techniques were not found to be used. It came as a surrise that data modelling was hardly done. Almost all organisations made a control model of the workflow. In one organisation the analysis and design of workflows was function oriented. This was unexected, because workflows consist of activities rather than functions. The orientationtowards business functions can lead to artial analysis of the workflow to be considered In studying the introduction of workflow systems, observations were done about key numbers, roject initiators, roject goals and motivations. Table 3 shows, interestingly enough, that most workflow rojects were initiated by management and relatively few by IT deartments and even fewer by Administrative Organisation (AO) deartments. Aarently, this is an innovation that is business driven rather than technologically ushed. In most cases a roject organisation is used to carry out the intended innovation. 5

7 Case Techniques used data rocess control organisation 1 informal 2 informal 3 grahical 4 grahical 5 grahical 6 grahical 7 grahical 8 grahical 9 informal 10 grahical 11 grahical 12 informal Table 2: Modelling Techniques Used Initiated by Organisation Management Users IT-deartment AO-deartment Table 3: Project Initiation A oular structure is to have a steering grou and a roject grou headed by the roject manager. We found that rojects where external workflow exertisewas involved were more successful than rojects on a do-it-yourself basis. Integration is one of the technical asects of workflow suort that causes ractical roblems. Although workflow literature usually assumes the existence of an electronic infrastructure, we found that this is not always the case in ractice. In all organisations, existing information systems (also called legacy systems) were integrated in the workflow system. This results frequently in the need to use data objects from one alication inside another. DDE is a oular candidate to solve this roblem. Interfacing between workflow suort tools is entirely absent. Some technical interfacing asects have been collected in table 4. Legacy alications can be triggered by events that occur in a workflow. Perceiving the existing systems as vertical alications gives a searation of alications and workflow. Some organisations aly this ercetion in theirdeveloment hilosohy. Data is notexclusively accessible via a single alication, but also with general tools. Routing decisions are mostly carried out in the workflow system and alications are triggered by assing the roer arameters. Interfacing a workflow tool to commercially available databases may or may not require develoing the interface modules, deending on the interface functionality offered in the tools used. The current status of job should be stored in a database rather than a file system for reasons of security. The information 6

8 C/S DBMS Network Oerating system Workflow tool 1 Informix Token Ring Dos/Win/Unix WFM (Digital) 2 Oracle Ethernet Dos/Win/Unix 3 Sybase Token Ring Dos/Win Staffware (Staffware) 4 PACE Wang VS 5 Informix Token Ring Dos/Win FloWare (Plexus) 6 Informix Ethernet Dos/Win FloWare (Plexus) 7 Oracle Ethernet Dos/Win/Unix Event Manager (Unisys) 8 IMS Ether+T.R. Dos/Unix 9 DB2 Token Ring OS/2 / Unix Work Management Builder (IBM) 10 Mainframe Unix Staffware (Staffware) 11 Mainframe Ethernet Dos/Win FileNet WorkFlo (Olivetti) 12 Oracle Dos/Win Table 4: Technical Asects of Integration needed to do the work may or may not be stored in a database system, usually deending on situational factors. Workflow definitions and oerational workflow data are also stored in a database. The workflow suort system covers the whole business rocess, as oosed to an existing alication that suorts a single activity or a number of activities. A majority of systems is linked to standard office tools, e.g. word rocessor, sreadsheet, or e-fax. Further, workflow systems are frequently used in combination with imaging tools. This combination is obvious, because work is much easier to schedule, monitor and distribute when the majority of documents resides in an electronic infrastructure. As long as most of the work is carried over on aer, much of the workflow has to be coordinated manually. The organisational tyology of Mintzberg [19] forms the basis of the comarison of the organisations in WA-12 with resect to organisational alicability. This comarison draws from three sources: the coordination mechanisms distinguished by Mintzberg, the different tyes of information systems identified by Leifer [15] and the information collected about the WA-12 organisations. Leifer s information technical aroach aligns with the organisational aroach of Mintzberg. Although the five organisational tyes as described by Mintzberg almost never occur in their ure form, they do rovide a framework in which structural characteristics of (administrative) organisations can be comared. Both the organisational and the information technical aroaches are comlemented by the results of WA- 12. Most organisations are of the standardisation based tye, which is in line with recent trends. Almost half the organisations were identified as a machine bureaucracy and the other half as a rofessional bureaucracy. The divisionalised form is identified at one organisation only. This is due to the fact that this tye consists of a combination of the other two tyes and the fact that the categorisation is made on a rocess level. Eight out of the twelve organisations have a distributed system and the other four have a centralised system. These results do not contradict the theory of Mintzberg and Leifer. In this comarison we have aid attention to terminology, modelling techniques, introduction of the workflow system, integration and organisation. The following section contains a discussion at a more general level, in order to reare conclusions that go beyond the scoe of the twelve organisations. 5 Discussion The discussion is resented in four arts. The first art gives general considerations about workflow management, based on the emirical results of WA-12 and literature. Technological asects of workflow 7

9 systems, such as integration, are discussed in the second art. The third art deals with the role of workflow suort systems in organisations. The fourth discussion is about roject characteristics of workflow management innovations. 5.1 Theory In section 2 we argued that there is a lack of methodological literature about workflow management and automation. Most of the ractical ublications about workflow management originate from suliers, focusing on tools and case studies in suort of those tools. Workflow is an emerging technology, likely to be resented as a anacea for all business roblems. No secific workflow methods are known to analists facing the challenge to imlement the workflow romise. Therefore, conventional modelling and even imlementation techniques are widely used. These observations justify the conclusion that workflow suort lacks a theoretical basis. This basis should make clear what workflow is, which techniques are to be used in which circumstances, how to describe a workflow formally, etc. A number of methods and techniques already exist to suort workflow, such as the ublished technique of Action Workflow [18], or the rorietary technique of DCE [21]. In ractice, methods and techniques are often chosen by convention or by the availability of CASE-tools. Consequently, the methods used do not always focus on the key issues in a workflow analysis, such as the triggering dynamics of the system. Furthermore, ill defined resonsibilities aear to be an imortant source of roblems in workflow rojects. A theory of workflow suort should therefore focus on triggering, activities and resonsibility of actors. The concets given in figure 1 must be incororated in methods and techniques for the analysis and design of workflow suort systems. 5.2 Technology Due to the fact that a workflow system is a combination of centralised control and local interactive rocessing, it is ideally suited for a client/server architecture. This architecture allows for imlementations ranging from conventional mainframe based situations through interconnected local area networks. Many organisations have the infrastructure already in lace, which is frequently based on PC workstations with MS-DOS/MS-Windows. Few workflow tools suort character terminals exlicitly. Figure 2 gives the generic architecture of workflow suort systems. This is essentially a client/server architecture. It is generic in the sense that each of the comonents can occur multily in different guises. It is also generic with resect to the concrete machines on which the comonents are located. Any comonent can be maed on any machine, which includes the ossibility of combinations of comonents on one machine. Three different storage comonents are distinguished: a definition store, a transaction store and an observation store. The definition store contains the structure of workflows. The transaction store kees track of all activities erformed in a workflow-instance. The observation store contains information about workflows, which is used for workload balancing, roductivity measurement, accounting, etc. There are three different tyes of active comonent in a workflow suort system: interface rocessors, event managers and workflow managers. An interface rocessor links alications to the workflow system. It can be either custom or tailor-made. The event manager maintains a list of work to be done, guarding deadlines and work conditions and notifyingother actors. A workflow manager coordinates withinworkflows, sawns and monitors other workflows, and communicates with other workflow managers when necessary. The clients occur in three different roles: workers, develoers and managers. They are distinguished because they require different functionality from a workflow suort system. In ractice, combinations of these roles are not uncommon. 8

10 LEGEND client comonent active comonent storage comonent worker develoer manager Interface rocessor event manager workflow manager definitions transactions observations Figure 2: A Generic Architecture for a Workflow Suort System In many situations, workflow suort and document imaging are an obvious and successful combination. A mature electronic communication infrastructure within an organisation stores and transorts most of the information objects used in a business rocess. This includes documents, files and archives, which makes the role of imaging technology an obvious one. A document imaging system is often an essential art of the infrastructure in which a workflow system is oerational. In the absence of secific workflow standards, integration roblems of different kinds (e.g. , API s, GUI s, etc.) must be anticiated in a workflow roject. DDE was seen in many of the WA-12 organisations. Although most vendors claim their tools will integrate with almost anything, current workflow tools are all mutually incomatible. The following questions with resect to integration are found to be relevant for workflow rojects: Which activities in the workflow are suorted by which existing alications? Which integration otions exist for each of the mentioned alications? Which integration otions are desired (data sharing, communication, user interface) What effort is needed for each of the defined integration otions? Which alternatives are ossible (rewriting an alication, alying standard software) Which trends in integration can be anticiated? It is imortant that these integration issues are made exlicit in the analysis hase, in order to avoid unexected roblems in the imlementation hase. A design method for workflow systems should take this into account. In the WA-12 cases, the observed oerating systems, database management systems and networking technology all follow acceted industry standards. Integration roblems on that level are likely to be small or absent. 5.3 Organisation Manufacturing rocesses and administrative rocesses differ on a number of structural characteristics. This has consequences for the way in which rinciles from one field can be alied in the other. In 9

11 manufacturing rocesses, the distinction between the roduction rocess and the information system to control and coordinate this rocess is clear. In administrative organisations, this distinction is often hard to make, because both systems rocess information. Workflow management can be used to searate the control and coordinationmechanisms from the rimary rocess. This yields insight in the (rimary) rocess, heling to realise the romised advantages of flexibility and integration. None of the 12 rocesses in WA-12 has been modelled in a logistic manner. This is due to the fact that the situation before workflow automation was not quantified. The introduction of a workflow system will have a lasting effect on future innovations, because workflow suort yields the quantitative information to assess future innovations in detail. With resect to the workflow rojects and the way in which they are managed, we have first and foremost observed that roject goals have largely been met, In site of roblems and inadequacies during those rojects. Projects run in a strict roject organisation achieve ambitious goals in a reasonable time. The rojects in WA-12 seem to suggest that searate steering and roject grous, a strong roject manager from within the organisation, sufficient commitment and an external systems integrator are comonents of a successful workflow roject. The fact that workflow management is relatively new, that it is meant to suort rimary rocesses and that it involves the coordination of work imly that workflow rojects have a relatively high roject risk. In WA-12, the following generic roject risks were encountered: commitment, user accetance, technical integration, roject organisation. Aart from integration, technical roject risks are relatively unimortant as oosed to organisational roject risks. The need for better, structured modelling techniques follows from two arguments. Analysts claim that they do not know how to analyse a business rocess in order to suort workflow management. Also, they frequently choose conventional analysis techniques rather than secific workflow analysis and design techniques. Many designers tend to use free diagrams, justified by the desire not to be restricted by technique rules. However, the quality of the analysis often suffers from this. Imlementing a workflow suort system is said to require business rocess redesign [4]. However, most organisations in WA-12 did not redesign their business rocesses. In these cases the word streamlining was more aroriate, as workflow suort was used to let the rocess evolve towards a new situation. Although it is reasonable to advocate doing a BPR related to workflow, it must be concluded that a redesign is not strictly necessary. 6 Conclusions It is likely that workflow suort systems will affect the way in which businesses oerate, because there is a sufficient number of good examles of successful workflow rojects. The current use seems to be more in streamlining rocesses rather than in a comlete redesign. Although quite likely in theory, it remains to be seen whether workflow suort systems will be the great BPR enabler in the daily ractice of businesses. The case studies in this research roject show secific characteristics that give workflow its own flavour. The coordination of work across the boundaries of deartments or even organisations is the key roblem that is addressed by workflow management. Current workflow research addresses roblems such as transaction models for workflow systems, database rimitives for workflow suort, concets and system architectures. The roblems that occur in ractice however have to do with integration on a technical and organisational level, methods and techniques and a lack of theory. There is an aarent discreancy between ongoing research and workflow ractice, which makes it necessary to revisit research agendas. Issues that should be toics of workflow research include distribution of workflow enactment functionality, the use of existing standards for integration on different levels and the use of existing technology to under the control of a workflow suort system. 10

12 From the WA-12 research we have learned that the triggering behaviour is the rime asect of workflow. Therefore, we believe that this asect should be the first to be considered in any analysis of workflows. This conclusion has imlications for the way in which organisations are being analysed today, which is often rocedure- or data-oriented. The analysis for workflow suort should focus on interactions rather than actions in the business rocess. Consequently, there is much attention to interactions across deartmental boundaries and even across cororate boundaries. This conclusion has been worked out by the author in a modelling technique called Trigger Modelling [11], which has been designed esecially for easy analysis of workflows and is suorted by formal semantics. Further research in the area of workflow suort needs to be done. This research is mainstream business information technology research, because of the strong interaction between business science and comuter science. The following research questions need attention (among others): How should a workflow be reresented in order to generate the corresonding enactment engine(s)? How should enactment engines at different locations work together to mimic a single enactment engine? Which are the interactions between workflows, and how do the affect the business rocess as a whole? Which theory of workflow suort will hel workflow analysts? Which generalised solutions for technical integration roblems can be offered to the end-user in ready-to-use modules? How must workflow suort systems of different vendors be made to cooerate and behave like a single system? How can workflow-based BPR be effectuated with minimal risk involved? Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Gaston Aussems, Matthijs Duitshof, Richard Huffmeijer and Erik Mulder and the articiating organisations for their cooeration in this research roject. We also with to thank DCE Nederland B.V., Data General, Deloitte and Touche, Euroforum, Image Grou Euroe, MID, Otten System Consulting, Pallas Athena B.V., Staffware Benelux B.V. and Wang Nederland B.V for their efforts to find the articiating organisations. References [1] BLYTH,A.,CHUDGE, J.,DOBSON, J.,AND STRENS, M. Ordit: A new methodology to assist in the rocess of eliciting and modelling organisational requirements. In Proceedings of the Conference on Organisational Comuting Systems (Militas, California, USA, Nov. 1993), ACM Press, [2] DAYAL,U.,HSU,M.,AND LADIN, R. Organizing long-runningactivities with triggers and transactions. In Proceedings of the 1990 ACM SIGMOD InternationalConference on Management ofdata (Atlantic City, NJ, 1990). [3] DEACON, A.,SCHEK, H.-J.,AND WEIKUM, G. Semantics-based multilevel transaction management in federated systems. In Proceedings the 10th Int. Conf. on Data Engineering (ICDE 94) (Houston, Texas, Feb. 1994). 11

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