What is workflow?
Workflow is the term used to describe the phases a piece of work goes through in a company’s work process, from inception to completion, and how these processes may be automated and carried out by a set of procedural standards. Organizations use workflow as a tool to manage activities, increase productivity, improve responsiveness, and increase profitability. Workflow may be parallel, with many phases happening at once, or sequential, with each step depending on the success of the preceding one.
Understanding Workflow
The study of the logical arrangement of work processes relied heavily on workflow. Triage refers to the optimization of industrial or informational operations to prevent bottlenecks. Following World War II, the workflow improvement movement led to several theories incorporating more qualitative business process re-engineering ideas. These concepts may be used in manufacturing newspapers, automobile assembly lines, or bank loan applications.
Organizations throughout the globe have adopted the process improvement principles of Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM is an organized method of managing the whole company, with internal policies and procedural standards lowering mistakes. Six Sigma uses quality control to cut down on faults.
Six Sigma strongly emphasizes cycle-time improvement while aiming to reduce manufacturing errors to 3.4 or less per million units or events. Stated differently, the approach offers a way to work more quickly while making fewer errors.
Technologies for Workflow and Big Data
Current workflow technology and management systems applications include marketing, banking, healthcare, and higher education. Because of their capacity to handle and derive value from large amounts of data, they have played a crucial role in developing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems, which profoundly affect business operations across many industries.
Enterprise data management systems are used to automate data processing, remove information silos, streamline business processes, and share data across an organization. They also contain analytics. This has aided in reunifying previously disjointed industries and sectors.
Big data is transforming finance by being used for procedures related to trade and compliance. Investors use the deluge of real-time social media and global digitalization data to control risk and develop investment ideas free from cognitive bias. They are also experimenting with improved data analytics and artificial intelligence.
Flow of Work in the Digital Age
The need for project management across teams, regions, and time zones has significantly increased workflow tools and software use. As more businesses engage with their workers virtually during the coronavirus epidemic, this tendency will only become more robust in 2021. Monday.com, Accelo, Trello, and Easynote are a few of the most widely used workflow management programs. These systems make it simple to create tasks and assign them to various people while also managing the entire workflow through a dashboard that acts as a central hub. The best part is that many of these platforms provide essential functions for free, keeping expenses down for new and small enterprises.
Conclusion
- A workpiece’s journey from inception to completion in a business process is called its workflow.
- Companies often adopt two major process improvement philosophies: Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM).
- With the advancement of machine learning and artificial intelligence, big data has aided in the automation of operations.
- Businesses can manage projects across teams, regions, and time zones using workflow tools and applications.
