What is Workflow Management Systems

Recent industry and business trends can be described as shorter life cycle, increased speed to market, customizability, and a wide variety (rather than mass production) of products. In order to cope with the new environment, business organizations in the supply chain need to communicate, collaborate, and share information as efficiently as they can. There are a variety of collaborative information systems and tools that are actively being used in the enterprises that make collaborative efforts among supply chain partners using digital technologies. In order to maximize business impacts of those collaborative tools, proper policy, and support from users and management are required. Understanding of the managerial issues of the collaborative information systems and tools regarding deployment and usage is also important for successful deployment. We provide an overview on functionalities of the collaborative tools, their business impacts, and managerial issues that need to be addressed to maximize their effectiveness.