工作流程管理系統 (Workflow Management System) 為企業提供了新的工具，以自動化企業的流程。而流程管理系統導入的關鍵，就是：如何建立最佳的企業流程讓系統正確執行之。 因此，工作流程編輯工具 (Workflow Authoring Tool) 也就相對顯得重要了；一個好的流程編輯工具必須涵蓋整個流程建立的生命週期：從流程的建立，到驗證與模擬以最佳化流程，最後輸出流程到流程管理系統。 在此，我們提出一個開放式架構的工作流程編輯工具，讓發展者可以嵌入不同的流程定義模型來編輯，並透過網路上的驗證服務來驗證流程，最後，將流程輸出給工作流程管理系統來使用。除此之外，亦能夠將可重複利用的流程定義元素，放到網路上的流程定義元素庫中，下次編輯流程時，就可以使用元素庫的服務取得所需的流程定義元素來建立新的工作流程。 Workflow Management System is a new facility for an enterprise to automate its processes. The key point for an enterprise to integrate the system is to model the processes correctly. Therefore, a handy Workflow Authoring Tool is really a great help. It should cover the whole life-cycle of modeling, including composing the process, verifying, simulating and optimizing it, and exporting it to the Workflow Management System. In this thesis, we proposed a Workflow Authoring Tool in an open architecture, which can let the enterprise develop its own plug-ins that fulfill the future requirements. Moreover, we have made the verification and the reusable process element repository as web services. Others can use this verification service to verify their processes, or can provide their-own-implementation verification service to us. And all of us can retrieve process elements on demand from a common reusable process element service.
