Workflow | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

A workflow consists of an orchestrated and repeatable pattern of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequence of operations, the work of a person or group, the work of an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. From a more abstract or higher-level perspective, workflow may be considered a view or representation of real work. The flow being described may refer to a document, service, or product that is being transferred from one step to another. Workflows may be viewed as one fundamental building block to be combined with other parts of an organization's structure such as information technology, teams, projects and hierarchies. The development of the concept of a workflow occurred above a series of loosely defined, overlapping eras. The modern history of workflows can be traced to Frederick Taylor and Henry Gantt, although the term "workflow" was not in use as such during their lifetimes. One of the earliest instances of the term "work flow" was in a railway engineering journal from 1921. Taylor and Gantt launched the study of the deliberate, rational organization of work, primarily in the context of manufacturing. This gave rise to time and motion studies. Related concepts include job shops and queuing systems (Markov chains). The 1948 book Cheaper by the Dozen introduced the emerging concepts to the context of family life. The invention of the typewriter and the copier helped spread the study of the rational organization of labor from the manufacturing shop floor to the office. Filing systems and other sophisticated systems for managing physical information flows evolved. Several events likely contributed to the development of formalized information workflows. First, the field of optimization theory matured and developed mathematical optimization techniques.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (12)

Related people (8)

Related concepts (21)

Related courses (12)

Related lectures (33)

Clouseau: Blockchain-based Data Integrity for HDFS Clusters

Ioannis Mytilinis

As the volume of produced data is exponentially increasing, companies tend to rely on distributed systems to meet the surging demand for storage capacity. With the business workflows becoming more and

IEEE COMPUTER SOC2021

A computational workflow for the expansion of heterologous biosynthetic pathways to natural product derivatives

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Jasmin Maria Hafner

Plant natural products (PNPs) and their derivatives are important but underexplored sources of pharmaceutical molecules. To access this untapped potential, the reconstitution of heterologous PNP biosy

NATURE RESEARCH2021

On the use of applied machine learning and digital infrastructure to leverage social media data in health and epidemiology

Martin Mathias Müller

The quantification of population-level health behaviors is crucial for guiding public health policy. However, traditional methods for measuring such health behaviors have several short- comings. In re

EPFL2021

Workflow

Business process

A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a particular customer or customers. Business processes occur at all organizational levels and may or may not be visible to the customers. A business process may often be visualized (modeled) as a flowchart of a sequence of activities with interleaving decision points or as a process matrix of a sequence of activities with relevance rules based on data in the process.

Workflow management system

A workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) provides an infrastructure for the set-up, performance and monitoring of a defined sequence of tasks, arranged as a workflow application. There are several international standards-setting bodies in the field of workflow management: Workflow Management Coalition World Wide Web Consortium Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards WS-BPEL 2.0 (integration-centric) and WS-BPEL4People (human task-centric) published by OASIS Standards Body.

CH-419: Protein mass spectrometry and proteomics

In systems biology, proteomics represents an essential pillar. The understanding of protein function and regulation provides key information to decipher the complexity of living systems. Proteomic tec

CS-489: Experience design

As we move towards a design economy, the success of new products, systems and services depend increasingly on the excellence of personal experience. This course introduces students to the notion and p

BIO-410: Bioimage informatics

The course provides a comprehensive overview of methods, algorithms, and computer tools used in in computational bioimaging and bioimage analysis. It exposes the fundamental concepts and the practical

Invoice Processing Tutorial

Covers the process of invoice processing, including handling invoices without purchase orders and approval workflows.

Invoice Processing at EPFL: Introduction

Compares old and new invoice processing systems at EPFL.

Alfresco Formation: Document Management

Covers the basics of Alfresco document management, including creating sites, managing users and groups, and applying tags.