Support of Knowledge-oriented Business Processes through Workflow Management Systems

Abstract

A major challenge in implementing business process-related knowledge management is to encourage employees to participate in knowledge processes. On the one hand, the educational work should be integrated harmoniously into the work context and, on the other hand, information must be presented and actively distributed as needed. In order to be able to introduce systematic knowledge management in companies, the design dimensions that a knowledge management project encompasses must first be taken into account. In the literature, the "three pillars of knowledge management" are often described in this regard, according to which successful knowledge management is based on the aspects of organization, people and technology, embedded in a corresponding corporate culture. The organization, i.e. both the organizational structure and the processes, must be tailored to the specific goals of knowledge management. The basis for filtering, addressing and control mechanisms is meta information about the knowledge content. Workflow management systems (WFMS) are software systems that, on the basis of a defined process model, support the processing of tasks by people who have specific roles or are assigned to specific organizational units and thereby provide the corresponding information objects. These systems offer an order structure for the classification and presentation of process-related knowledge, which reflects the experience and information needs of the users. This article presents a concept for the management of process-related knowledge and illustrates its implementation using a prototype.