Our developers are always on the lookout for new technologies and trends to make process management even more effective. Web 2.0 is one area where we see a lot of potential, and a new research project has been set up to assess it.
In January, I invited 14 experts from Darmstadt University of Technology, IWi, IMC, and Kaeser Kompressoren to the PROWIT kick-off meeting in Saarbrücken, where we discussed the creation of a prototype process collaboration platform based on Web 2.0 technology. The aim of the platform is to enable every participant in a business process to access information relating to their activities, send queries about a specific task (e.g., to the previous processor of the task), launch an ad-hoc workflow, and exchange suggestions for improvement.
A future requirement is for critical situations in the process flow to be identified by software sensors and notified to process owners regardless of location using the latest communication technology. The project has also attracted support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFB), which is providing funding. In case you’re wondering: the name "PROWIT" is derived from Process-Oriented Web 2.0-based Integrated Telecommunications service. For more information, visit the homepage of the PROWIT research project.
