Workflow and simulation technology are important enabling technologies for the effective application of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) techniques (Hammer and Champy 1993). Simulation plays an important enabling role in BPR and CPI and has been successfully used to assist process improvement efforts in several different tasks including 1) measuring the performance of existing systems, 2) identifying improvement opportunities, 3) evaluating the effect of alternative operational policies on system performance (what-if analysis), and 4) comparing alternative system designs. The role of simulation as a BPR enabler has been well documented (Mayer et al. 1995).

Recent advances in information technology, such as workflow, have opened up new opportunities to use simulation more effectively to facilitate process improvement and change management. Workflow technology appears to have the potential to leverage the benefits of simulation for the design and analysis of work. Because the study of processes (in essence, how things work) is an integral part of BPR and CPI efforts, there is much to be gained by combining the power of these two technology areas.

Motivated by this opportunity, we have leveraged the results of our research on knowledge based simulation to formulate an architecture that embeds a simulation-based expert system within a workflow environment (Mayer 1988, Benjamin et al. 1993, and Erraguntla et al. 1994). The resulting Workflow Analysis and Design Environment (WADE) architecture has significant application potential in many areas including BPR and CPI, production systems design and analysis, workflow design and analysis, and change management systems. This paper describes the WADE concept of operation and an application of WADE using WorkXpert.

Bio:
Dr. Perakath Benjamin received his Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the National Institute for Training in Industrial Engineering in 1983 and Ph.D in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University in 1991. Perakath was a visiting professor at Texas A&M and research scientist at KBSI. Currently, he is a vice president at KBSI. He has over 12 years of professional experience in systems analysis, design, development, testing, documentation, deployment, and training.