A Turn-around Time Analysis of Workflow of The Materials Ordering Process

Abstract

Workflow is the flow of business processes. Management of the workflow can shorten the time that is needed for group work. Therefore, workflow management systems, which perform definitions, execution, and management of business processes, have been widely implemented. However, only computing management does not enable to achieve a sufficient effects such as “shortening turn-around time”. In order to manage tasks more smoothly, the improvement and reconstruction of workflow are necessary. To accomplish this purpose, it is necessary to evaluate the workflow. However, it is impossible to put a modified workflow into practice and gain numerical data. Therefore, numerical data must be estimated by simulation.
This paper proposes a workflow modeling method using the log data of a real work flow monitoring system. The parameters of a model were determined through the stochastic analysis of the log data and interviews to clerks. The simulated results of the estimated workflow model coincided with the observed data. Several types of sensitive analysis on critical parameters were clarified.