DEC (Maynard, MA) has assembled a suite of work-flow, modeling, and groupware products that astutely address the needs of organizations going forward with reengineering and work-flow initiatives. The process modeling part of the product line is DECmodel, a slick piece of modeling code that tracks process-related activities across multiple dimensions, including cost, time, transactions, or whatever the business unit manager wants to monitor. An interesting feature allows you to look at the process from multiple perspectives (e.g., from that of a senior manager, a middle manager, or a technician).
The product allows the modeler to test, verify, and validate ideas for improving business operations, answers "what-if" questions on the work process being mapped, builds working simulations, and runs on standard M
S-DOS-compatible PCs or laptops under Windows 3.1. Perhaps most noteworthy about DECmodel is that you can use it as a stand-alone modeling aid or link it with a new product from DEC, code-named RFM (Reliable Flow Manager), which actually generates code. At the time of this writing, RFM just emerged from external field tests. The product has already been incorporated into the RAELS (Rapid Access Electronic Library System), an integrated document management system that Loral Space and Range Systems designed.
RFM separates processes from applications that are separated from data, which are then separated from organizational issues and considerations. RFM takes a graphical view of the business and, in real time, converts that view to a script language that is uploaded to the server. Early installations have used OSF/1 on DEC Alpha machines. The originating graphical view does not have to be created on DEC's DECmodel product. You can create a translator for any process-modeling package. RFM's product manage
r estimates that on average, it takes about 30 to 60 days for DEC staff to do a translation from scratch.
Wang Makes It Open
Wang Laboratories (Lowell, MA) is aware of the importance of letting customers select and integrate the components they want. Wang's Open/work flow allows organizations to create and manage work-flow procedures. It lets you organize, automate, manage, and fully integrate work processes with new or existing PC, LAN, Unix, and legacy applications. Wang links a world-class front-end modeling capability with some powerful tools for people who actually build systems.
Tools from Wang such as Open/image Custom Controls for Microsoft's Visual Basic product provide easy, low-cost, interactive client/server applications design with image creation, storage, and manipulation. Open/image User Objects for PowerSoft's PowerBuilder 3.0 product allows developers to integrate document management and routing capabilities. Open/image Connect is a set of software products that enables end u
sers, VARs, and professional services personnel to easily and quickly add image and work-flow functionality to host applications running under terminal emulation windows on PC workstations, to MS-DOS applications running in Microsoft Windows, and to supported Microsoft Windows applications.
Wang has also formed a tight relationship with Lotus Notes. Wang is one of the few Premium Resellers of Lotus Notes and has been involved with the product since 1991 and offers a variety of Notes-specific services.
DEC and Wang Put It All Together
