چارچوب نوآورانه از جریان کاری مبتنی بر همکاری در مدیریت زنجیره توسعه

Currently, most product development procedures have been characterized as unnecessarily complicated. To maintain a competitive edge and to simplify the procedures, joint efforts from different functional groups play such crucial role. Specifically, information from marketing, sales, engineering, sourcing, and manufacturing should be cross-referenced. In addition, adopting pre-defined workflows contributes to efficient collection of distributed information. Moreover, unlike traditional workflow, a collaborative-based workflow (CWF) in product development process boasts of complicated workflow forms with manifold views for a workflow execution. Traditional workflow solutions, for instance, can only transmit a workflow form through different actors. Such workflow solutions merely offer modeling approval-based workflow (AWF), such as drawing reviews or absence applications. This paper illustrates the framework of CWF solution and proposes its application in the model workflow of a distributed product development system. This framework includes four interrelated modules. They are KM4, AS API, SmartForm, and Workflow Engine. In addition, four visual assistant modeling tools are introduced and they are Data Designer, AppDefinition, Layout Designer, and CWF Builder. To fulfill the varied business requirements, Data Designer, AppDefinition, and Layout Designer attempt to achieve a dynamic and efficient construction of complicated workflow forms in collaborative workflow solution. Other workflow-related setups, such as defining status diagrams, correspondence persons, and applicatory workflow forms, are accomplished in CWF Builder. The major contribution of this paper lies in the proposing of a framework for CWF and in the introducing of visual tools for CWF modeling. Compared to the traditional hard-coding method, the construction time for CWF system can be reduced significantly with the assistance of modeling tool. Time reduction on developing information systems, in this regard, is a very important issue for most modern industries. The concept in this paper can direct a global enterprise to efficiently construct workflow management system for global collaboration.

Local development of marketing specialists has been limited by our market size and education system. Despite this systematic inadequacy, the engineering education in Taiwan has been successful in strengthening product design and development capabilities. Because of this particular development, Taiwan has a high-level of commitment to the product design and development segments. To maintain this competitive edge, companies in Taiwan need a system to better execute their development capabilities. Specifically, network should be well-connected to enable the exchange of such information as marketing, sales, engineering, sourcing, and manufacturing. In addition, to gain a competitive edge in the global industry, it is common for companies to distribute their development personnel in various locations. However, the distances among these locations pose many serious communication problems. In addition to the communication problem, heterogeneous data integration poses another threat to distributed product development operations. Different data management functions and solution infrastructures may be needed to respond to different organization structure. Moreover, combining product data from different locations over the Internet is also a challenge. To enhance communication efficiency, an innovative solution of collaborative-based workflow (CWF) is introduced. The key challenge of CWF solution lies in its deviations of different views for collaborators. To investigate the suitability of current workflow solutions for such requirement, previous studies on workflow are reviewed in Section 2. After literature review, the incompatibility between CWF concept and current workflow solutions is explained in Section 3. Furthermore, a new product development application is also introduced to illustrate the concept of actual CWF in Section 3. According to the discussions in Section 2 through Section 3, to improve CWF construction efficiency, an innovative framework of CWF solution is introduced, and assistant modeling tools are developed. Section 4 is dedicated to stating the architectural concepts of modeling CWF. In Sections 5 and 6, the assistant tools for CWF modeling are illustrated. The procedure for constructing CWF system by these tools is also outlined by modeling the new product development application in Section 3.

7. Discussion and conclusions The major contribution of this paper is to present an innovative framework and to introduce assistant tools for CWF modeling. As for product development application, a simple example needs to be modeled so as to illustrate practical requirements. For most small scaled companies, development data may be manipulated by one or two persons, and no collaborative issues are involved. Hence, CWF may be too complicated, and AWF solution is good enough for such companies. However, for most global enterprises, CWF is so important to build a collaborative platform for different specialists around the world. Such requirements cannot be fulfilled by traditional workflow solutions with simple workflow form. In terms of software technology, the main difference between CWF and AWF lies in the complexity of workflow forms. For CWF solution, along with unifying all data fields to a single data source, substantial deviations of different user interfaces (i.e. workflow forms) for collaborators must be offered. Besides, to accomplish a customized CWF template instantaneously, the dynamic and efficient construction of workflow forms is essential. The dynamics points to the distribution of different views to different organization groups when jointly operating a CWF. Achieving efficiency requires minimum customized programming efforts and assistant tools to construct a workflow form. Therefore, assistant modeling tools for complicated data integration are integral in an innovative framework for CWF template. The intention of developing such assistant tools is to provide common environment for different professionals while doing requirement analysis (RA), system analysis (SA), and system design (SD). This paper illustrates the procedure to construct complicated workflow forms in a CWF by visual tools (Data Designer, AppDefinition, and Layout Designer) with software kernels (KM4, AS API, and SmartForm). In KM4, an innovative data modeling scheme named “Triangle” is introduced. The Triangle model can eliminate communication gaps among system clients, business consultants, and system designers. With Data Designer, Triangle models can be constructed easier, and communication gaps among system clients, business consultants, and system designers can be eliminated. With AppDefinition, by separating database structure from SQL and by applying AS API, database programmers can manipulate database programs in prior to model workflow forms more reliable and easier. Consequently, substantial deviations of workflow forms for CWF operations can be visually constructed in Layout Designer. Such practice fulfills the CWF requirements of “dynamic” and “efficiency” in the construction of a workflow form with minimum programming efforts. Besides workflow form construction, this paper also illustrates the procedure to setup workflow routing by visual tool CWF Builder with software kernel Workflow Engine. With CWF Builder, status diagram, correspondence persons, and applicatory workflow forms can be visually accomplished without programming. This paper shows, by adopting modeling tools, system administrators can configure the workflow forms of a CWF in a more dynamic and efficient manner. Compared to the traditional hard-coding method, the construction time for CWF system can be significantly reduced with the assistance of modeling tool. Time reduction in developing information systems is gradually gaining interests among researchers in most modern and upcoming discoveries on industries. The value of modeling architecture in this paper lies in developing CWF management systems which facilitate efficient product development and overcome the obscurities from next generation. When applied globally, this concept can help construct a workflow management system in achieving future collaboration.