Workflow Management Coalition - Press Release - 21-May-96
Workflow Management Coalition to Debut Demo of Workflow Interoperability
Specification
BRUSSELS, Belgium (May 21, 1996) --
The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), a non-profit international
organization of workflow vendors, customers and consultants today
announced that it will provide the first public demonstration of its
Workflow Interoperability (Interface 4) specification at the Workflow
Canada Conference taking place in Toronto, June 9-11, 1996. Coalition
members will perform a live demonstration of a workflow
interoperability scenario designed to show how businesses can exchange
and process work from two or more workflow products.
In direct response to growing user demands for demonstration of the
viability of its standards in distributed process management, the WfMC
demonstration includes workflow products from seven WfMC members - CSE
Systems, DEC, IBM, ICL, Microsoft, Staffware and Wang - and profiles a
Supply Chain Management scenario where the integration of workflow
processes links organizations to their customers and suppliers in a
cooperative process. This demonstration is based on the current draft
specification that was announced on February 26, 1996.
The Supply Chain Management Process
The Supply Chain Management scenario is typical of organizations that
are extending their business processes to include suppliers, business
partners and customers. The objective is to obtain benefits by
rapidly getting manufactured goods from the production line into
retail stores, by providing early notice and coordination of business
processes across a number of cooperating organizations. Typically,
organizations are expecting to use existing EDI connections,
electronic commerce over the Internet, or direct connections with
business partners to accomplish these objectives. Achieving this level
of integration requires the capabilities of multiple workflow products
to communicate and cooperate in data exchange and process hand-offs.
"Corporations frequently need different workflow products to serve
different needs and applications," said Sunil Sarin, Chairman of the
Coalition's Working Group on Workflow Interoperability and Workflow
Architect at Xerox Xsoft - a Coalition member. "While the Supply
Chain Management Process scenario is hypothetical, it is nonetheless a
clear demonstration that if a company has such a need they can not
only efficiently exchange and process work, but protect and capitalize
on their workflow investments."
About the Workflow Management Coalition
Founded in 1993, the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is a
non-profit, international organization of workflow vendors, customers and
consultants. The Coalition's mission is to promote the use of workflow through
the establishment of standards for software terminology, interoperability and
connectivity between workflow products.
Consisting of more than 175 members in 25 countries, the Coalition has
quickly become established as the primary standards body for this
rapidly expanding software market. In November 1995, the Coalition
published its workflow application programming interface (Interface 2)
specification designed to give users increased flexibility in
implementing standards-based workflow systems.
For further information contact:
Contact: Attn. Beth Johnson, Phase Two Strategies (beth_johnson@p2pr.com or tel:
415/772-8419) or Emmy Botterman, WfMC (100113.1555@compuserve.com
or tel: +32 2 774-9633).
Workflow Management Coalition Office
Avenue Marcel Thiry 204, 1200 Brussels,Belgium;
Tel: +32 2 774 96 33. Fax: +32 2 774 96 90
E-Mail: 100113.1555@compuserve.com
Or contact one of the Country
Contacts
WfMC Home Page
Last updated: Wed May 22 15:30:24 1996
by Austin Tate, AIAI (A.Tate@ed.ac.uk)