Formal workflow design analytics using data flow modeling

Workflow design has become a critical function in enterprise information management. However, only scant research attention has been paid to formal workflow design methodologies. As a result, existing design methods in business process management remain a manual and experiential effort and result in inefficiency in design tasks and potential errors in workflow models. Considering that there are hundreds and thousands of business processes in organizations worldwide, overcoming this deficiency will have an enormous technical and economic impact on enterprise information management. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of incorporating formal analytics into workflow design, thus alleviating the intellectual challenge faced by business analysts when creating workflow models. The workflow design analytics we propose helps construct a workflow model based on information about the relevant activities and their associated data. In addition, our workflow design approach also helps determine whether the given information is sufficient for generating a workflow model and ensures the avoidance of certain workflow anomalies. The significance of our study is to enable the transformation of workflow design from a manual and experiential effort into a more systematic and rigorous approach.