Research Of Workflow Modeling Tool And Its Applications In Shipbuilding Enterprise

Workflow Management technology is considered as the core technology to provide powerful support to business process re-engineering, process management and process automatization. It's main characteristic is that makes business process automated, wholly or partially, by using computer technology. The basic requirement for workflow modeling is that the processes are modeled in a simple and virtual way, so actual business process can be expressed by computer. Based on the research of workflow currently, this paper focus on organizsational model and the integration with process model. In the paper, a reference meta-model for organizational structure is proposed, and a formal organization definition on XML is also presented. Based on this model, a visual process and organization modeling tool is designed.The workflow meta-model consists of four components, namely: process model, organization model, resource model and data model. The process model is based on the specifications proposed by WfMC. This paper emphasize the organization. The reference meta-model for organizational structure is classified as department, position, employee, role and workgroup sub-model. One sub-mode describe enterprise structures from one viewport and they relate each other, which lead to that the organization model have ability to describe complex enterprise structures.The workflow modeling tool is developed in Java language, and user can create workflow in a natural and visual way. As the process modeling tool, user can define many basic properties of activity by dialogs. And the tool provides grammar verification for process model. As the organization modeling tool, the model is visualized by trees and the relation is controled by the properties of node.The whole process and organization model is defined by Extensible Markup Language (XML), which is compatible with WfMC's specifications of processdefinition and eliminate the barrier of data sharing between different workflow management systems. In order to standardize the XML description of organization definition, we develop the XML Scehma of XML document to ensure the validation of the organization definition.The shipbuilding industry is the window of modern industry and indicates the technology level of country. As a oriented-process technology, workflow can resolve the "information system island" problem in shipbuilding enterprises. In this paper, we'll make a attempt about applying workflow in shipbuilding enterprises.