ERCIS | European Research Center for Information Systems

Funding Body:

• bmbf (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung)

Motivation

The joint research project PROWORK aims at conceptually designing and exemplarily implementing modern workflow-based PPC system architectures. Focus is given to the increase of efficience, flexibility and quality of order processing. The project partners comprise two university research institutes, two software engineering companies and an industry consortium consisting of four contract manufacturers that cover a wide spectrum of order processing process support requirements. By identifying possible solutions of workflow management for PPC systems and by developing alternative collaboration concepts of these two systems, recommendations are derived for future conceptual designs of PPC system solutions.

Workflow-based architectures

In a first step, the conceptual integration of PPC core functions with pre- and succeeding fields of activity presents new ways of incorporating workflow management into the definition and supporting of comprehensive PPC processes. The interlinkage of PPC systems with circumferential fields of activity (e. g. sales and distribution, accounting) leads to a more comprehensive process support.

Secondly, PPC systems are conceptually designed anew based on workflow management systems. Using workflow management mechanisms that handle the interdependencies between PPC data, objects and process instances, an intelligent and flexible linking of partial plans is made possible. This is achieved through the coordination of autonomously planning logistical units and their planning systems.

Project sponsors

This joint research project, with a duration of three years, is sponsored by the German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), while the project executing organisation is the Produktions- und Fertigungstechnologien (PFT). Due to a high interest in this topic, a research group - Manufacturing Workflow - has been established to discuss the support of order processing process by workflow management.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Jörg Becker
Street:Leonardo-Campus 3
City:48149 Münster
Country:Germany
Web:Website
Email: becker@ercis.uni-muenster.de