A knowledge-based workflow to dynamically manage product innovation

Extended enterprises require novel modes of organizing companies and managing collaboration. Although the promise of Information Communication Technologies to connect people, processes and information, it is worth to notice that current implementations are strongly document-oriented and do not enable flexible workflow management overcoming well-known inter-enterprise integration difficulties. The long term goal of the research is the study of a new methodology and the development of dedicated software tools to facilitate the dynamic collaboration among 21 companies participating to a research project, funded by the Italian Economic Ministry, called CO-ENV. The definition of dynamic workflow system architecture represents the step forwards the implementation of a collaborative platform. Preliminary benchmarking of available systems and techniques, the product development process analysis of the project participant companies and a possible structure of the system are well illustrated. Examples of expected and unexpected exceptions are reported and differences between static and dynamic workflow management systems are discussed