Workflow Sample: Development of the Core System Costs "3 Person / a Day"?

Will it be possible to build the Core System over a Workflow?

It will be possible if it is with a Workflow of nowadays. Though it is controversial that how far a Workflow should be functional, the Non-programing technology of today is really amazing. Especially in a department or company of up to 500 people, employees who know the reality of day-to-day operations should "build it by themselves". I dare to say that you surely can get a better one than "made-to-order system of 10 million yen budget".

The following Workflow definition is "Bill Creation flow (including reporting the Order and reporting the Service provided)" for 'Questetra, Inc.', a Japanese SaaS business company.

72 Data items.
One of them is Table type (length variable).
Has a mechanism to send an email which business data have been inserted in the middle of the process.
Has a mechanism for the automatic PDF document generation.
Has a mechanism for the automatic starting monthly Billing flow.
Has a mechanism for the automatic approval when passing the deadline.
Has a mechanism for the automatic starting triggered by 'an email from an external'
Has a mechanism of labor saving of input by indicating prospect according to input user or input time.

If you would build this by made-to-order, maybe it will cost '2 people working a whole month on only the requirements definition'. And later, it will cost 'never less than 10 people working a whole month on designing, development and testing'.

[Bill Creation flow]

Staring at the Workflow diagram, you will know that 'the number of the Tasks' was surprisingly small.

(If you do not count the exception,) the number of the Tasks of management department is three.
The number of the Tasks of the Sales department is three altogether with orders reporting and monthly confirmation together.

This business chart looks very simple and easy to understand. However, our wiser readers would know, "Consideration of business processes To Be" is a slow operation. We have come through various discussions and considerations to reach here.

As a standard, by 2-3 people who are familiar with the internal operations carrying out debate and discussion for about 20-30 hours, "significant improvement in its own way" will be achieved. (Once or twice a year)
In many cases, the Tasks (step) which had been figured out at the beginning of the discussion will be significantly consolidated at the final proposal.

In addition, the most time-consuming work to configure the result of the discussion into the Workflow system, is "description". Even though how you intended to be friendly on such as simple manual on the operation screen, the statement of the outgoing email, the name of the Tasks and so on, when the Workflow was actually published to in-house, it will end up with 'I don't know how to handle this!'. 'Small improvements' should be practiced even weekly.

* The Business Process Archive in this article is only to be a sample, not for a Business Template. So the contents of the archive are remained in Japanese.

[1.受注報告/Recieve Order Info]