KR20100081446A - Process automation system using business work flow in enterprise resource planning system and method of the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A process automation system with business workflow in an ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) system and a method thereof are provided to easily change the workflow by only reconfiguring of the workflow without the modification of a source level when to change the workflow. CONSTITUTION: In a service area, the business service in which business logic is included and the data service in which business logic is not included are separately defined. The service area comprises data blocks and methods. A business workflow registration area(33) registers a business process. The business process is visualized through a processor viewer and is defined in the service area. A business workflow execution area(35) executes the registered business process.

Description

PROCESS AUTOMATION SYSTEM USING BUSINESS WORK FLOW IN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEM AND METHOD OF THE SAME}

The present invention relates to enterprise resource planning (ERP), and more particularly, to a unit process management method of an ERP business application.

ERP as an integrated information system technology for efficiently managing all human and physical resources in a company used for corporate activities and ultimately strengthening the company's competitiveness is currently in the spotlight as an integrated solution for each enterprise.

The ERP system reconstructs a number of systems, including production and materials, purchasing and imports, sales and logistics, operations management, accounting, human resources, and salary, into an integrated system for corporate management. It is a software package that maximizes productivity. Such an ERP system has to respond quickly to maximize productivity or to change in business processes, but it requires a lot of human and material resources to modify and further develop an application for a unit process. The present invention relates to a method for quickly coping systematically when a change in a unit process is required.

Recently, BPM (Business Process Management) based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been reported. This is due to the company's desire to change the process in a fast, flexible and economic way in response to changes in the business environment. It is a methodology that pursues process integration from the business point of view or the ease of creating, changing, and modifying processes. to be. In other words, SOA-based BPM can combine the services provided by SOA into a process to create a comprehensive process, increasing the flexibility of application services, and quickly applying it to the development of new application services or recycling of existing services. I will.

However, the conventional business program has been a major obstacle to the rapid and flexible response to the change of the process because the company's series of processes are not visualized and are dependent on the source code. In order for companies to respond quickly, flexibly and effectively to change, system users (enterprise) should be supported by programs that make it easy to identify and easily change each process. However, since a series of work flows are not visualized in the conventional work program, it is difficult to know what is happening internally when processing the work program.

1 illustrates a conceptual configuration in a business application by general coding of a conventional ERP system. As shown in FIG. 1, the method 3 programmed in each conventional business process 1 has only a portion of the database call 4 and the COM call 5, and is coded by the developer 2 ( 6) Each function or process is dependent on the source code. Therefore, the user 7 has a problem that the flow of work related to the process is not visible. Therefore, if the user wants to change the process or to reorganize a new process, the source level cannot be modified by the user. As a result, these programmatic problems and system environment have been an obstacle for companies, even if they want to change processes in a fast, flexible, and economical way. In addition, since the concept of the SOA standard was not actively applied in the above-described prior art system, there was a problem in that it was difficult to link with another service of the same system or a service of another system.

The inventor of the present invention has completed the present invention as a result of research efforts to solve the above problems.

In order to solve the problems of the prior art as described above, an object of the present invention is to enable a user (manager) to grasp the business process flow at a glance. ERP systems enable companies to easily visualize their business processes, creating a program environment that can respond quickly and flexibly to changing business.

In addition, another object of the present invention is to provide an easy way for a user to change the workflow of each process integration, only by reconfiguration of the workflow without modification of the source level.

In addition, another object of the present invention is to create a system environment that can be easily linked with various services.

On the other hand, other unspecified objects of the present invention will be further considered within the range that can be easily inferred from the following detailed description and effects.

In order to achieve the above object, the system of the present invention is defined separately from the business service including the business logic and the data service not including the business logic, each of which includes a data block that is a data schema and a method that is the actual execution unit Service area;

A business workflow registration area for visualizing through a process viewer and registering a business process defined in the service area; And

And a business workflow execution area for executing a business process registered in the business workflow registration area.

Further, preferably, the business service is registered through the business workflow registration area, and the data service calling a database is made in a process independent of the process in which the business service is generated and is built up.

Also, preferably, the business service method may include a data service method, a COM method, a web method, and a business workflow method.

In addition, the method of the data service, it is preferable to include a method for performing an operation for querying, storing, and deleting data in the database.

In addition, the business workflow registration area,

A service registration module for registering the business service; A service method registration module for registering the method of the business service; A module for registering a flow of a business workflow in accordance with a procedure including a data service, a web service, and a COM; A module defining a data block of the business service; A data block mapping module for mapping data blocks of the business service and data blocks of the data service; And an input / output item selection module for selecting a field actually executed in the data block.

In addition, the business service may be understood as being defined in units of blocks that perform specific functions with distributed business logic in a computing environment.

In addition, the method of the present invention for achieving the object is a process automation method by the business workflow in the enterprise resource planning system:

Creating a data service that invokes a database and instrumenting it in the system;

Registering a business service through a business workflow, which is a process automation engine that visualizes, registers, and executes a business process, mapping the business service with the data service, and then generating a business process; And

And executing the generated business process.

In addition, preferably, the step of generating the data service,

Defining a data service that invokes a database; Registering a method of the data service; Defining a data block of the data service; Creating a stored procedure (SP) capable of calling a database; And defining an input / output item of the data service.

In addition, preferably, a business service registered through the business workflow may be understood as being defined in units of blocks that perform specific functions with business logic distributed in a computing environment.

Further, preferably, the step of generating the business process,

Registering the business service; Defining and registering a method inside the business service; Registering the flow of the business workflow according to a predetermined order using the pre-registered data service; Defining a data block of the business service; Mutually mapping a data block of the business service and a data block of the data service; And selecting an input / output item of the business service.

In addition, the method of the data service, it is preferable to include a method for performing an operation for querying, storing, and deleting data in the database.

In addition, the method of the business service, it is preferable to include a data service method, COM method, Web method, business workflow workflow method.

According to the present invention, there is an advantage that the work flow is visible on the terminal screen, and thus there is an advantage that it can quickly and flexibly cope with the changing business. In addition, there is an advantage that even when changing the workflow, it can be easily changed only by reconfiguration of the workflow without modification of the source level. These advantages have the remarkable effect of shortening the work system development period and the resulting cost reduction.

In addition, the effects of the present invention can be summarized as follows.

-Visualization of work flows;

-Shortening the period of work system development;

-Linkage with various services;

-Easy to change program to suit user needs

Reduction of unnecessary development resource investment

Although effects not specifically mentioned in the specification of the present invention, it is added that the potential effects expected by the technical features of the present invention are treated as described in the specification of the present invention.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described specific details for the practice of the invention. In the following description of the present invention, when it is determined that the subject matter of the present invention may be unnecessarily obscured as matters obvious to those skilled in the art, such as related well-known functions, the detailed description thereof will be omitted.

First, the program system of the present invention is based on SOA implementation technology. And some important terms herein are defined as follows.

1. 'Workflow' refers to the flow of work (unit process).

2. 'Work' means a unit process (a concept smaller than a business process) of a business application.

3, 'Service' is defined by dividing into business service and data service.

4. 'Business Service' refers to a block unit that performs specific functions with distributed business logic in a computing environment.

5. 'Data Service' means the smallest unit of service that does not contain business logic.

6. 'Process' means business logic.

7. 'Business Workflow' is defined as a process automation engine for visualizing a business process, creating, deleting, and modifying a process, and expressly expressing the workflow unique to the present invention as 'K-WF' in this specification. It was also.

2 illustrates a schematic concept of the present invention. Each process 10, such as credit check, account, item, order master, etc., is defined within a business workflow 30. The developer terminal 2 registers a service 20 composed of data blocks and methods, and makes use of this to create and reorganize each process 10. At this time, the developer terminal 2 registers the service 20 in the business workflow 30 without coding. The user terminal 7 performs a series of tasks such as selecting, combining, and deleting a process using the business workflow 30, and the business workflow 30 visually displays the process on the screen of the user terminal 7. To express and provide work flow. Since a new process can be created by executing the business workflow 30, it is possible to cope with the change quickly and flexibly without the help of the developer terminal 2.

3 shows a schematic configuration example of a framework according to the present invention. Included are a stored procedure (SP), which is a set of queries that allow the database and file system 100 to handle data stored in the database. The Block SP / Data SP sends only the procedure name and some variables to the database server, and the business logic is separated from the SP and included in the business workflow 30 of the Business Service Layer 300. do. In addition, a Web service layer 400 is connected to a presentation layer 500 of the user screen stage, and a firewall 450 exists therebetween.

Business workflows present in the business service layer 300 visually present a series of tasks, for example using an ordered SP method. Reference numeral 40 illustrates an order store method. Processes that can be registered by the user through business work fluor 30 are defined, for example, contact confirmation, department confirmation, account checking, account credit, automatic phone number, quantity, item identification, VAT, and the like.

The service call method can use any one of web services, net remoting, SOAP, and debug.

As shown in FIG. 4, the business workflow 30 system of the present invention may include a service 31, a business workflow registration area 33, and a business workflow execution area 35. Here, the system does not mean a set of hardware, but a program area constituting the business workflow 30 of the present invention.

FIG. 5 illustrates the detailed configuration of the service 31 of FIG. 4 in more detail. The service 31 is composed of a data block 310, which is a data schema, and a method 320, which is a unit that is actually executed. The services are separated from each other as business services and data services, of which a dual business service 31 is registered through a business workflow, and a data service (not shown) calls a database. The method 320 includes a data service 322, a COM method 323, and a web service method 324 that call a database, which is represented by the K-WF in the business workflow for creating a new process. It may be configured as a work flow (321).

The data service method 302 is composed of methods for performing an operation of inquiring, storing, and deleting data in a database, and calling a method for performing each operation to perform a corresponding operation. The COM method 323 is a concept of a Windows operating system-based component and exists as a file such as a DLL or an OCX. Like services, COM consists of methods that perform their functions (data manipulation, business logic, etc.). The web service method 324 is a software component that implements a dynamic system environment so that all applications used in different computing environments connected to the network can communicate and execute directly. Likewise, it can consist of methods that perform specific tasks. Those that cannot be supported by the data service, COM, web service, etc. (235) will continue to be added. For example, scripts, file services, and so on.

In order for the terminal to execute the business workflow 30 to create a new process, a service is first registered through the registration area 33 of the business workflow 30, and the business work configured in the method of the business workflow 30. Preliminary procedures, such as registering flow task flows, should be performed. Since a process implemented with Business Process Management (BPM) is implemented by selecting or interconnecting one or more registered services, the service must first be defined and registered within the business workflow, and also input and output as an interface to the service. Should be defined. 6 sequentially describes the procedure performed in the registration area 33.

First, a business workflow service or a service to be used in a business workflow is registered (S10). Next, the method described above is registered in the service (S11). The business workflow is registered by registering data services / web services / COM / Script in order (S12). After completing the basic registration procedure for such a service, a data block of the business service of the business workflow is defined (S13), and a mapping structure between the data block of the business workflow and the services used therein is defined (S14). To this end, as shown in FIG. 7, a plurality of data service pools 322 exist, and a necessary data service 3220 and a method 3222 are selected therefrom. Each data service 3220, like the business service 31, is configured to include a data block 3221 and a method 3222 to allow the business service 31 and the data service 3220 to be mapped.

Then, input and output items are selected to register the interface of the service, and a field necessary for actual execution is selected in the data block (S15).

FIG. 8 shows an example of the configuration of a flowchart in which the business workflow is actually executed in the execution region 35 of the business workflow. It is executed according to the flow of business workflow defined at the time of execution. Using the XML data and other information that is input for the first time, the execution of the business workflow is initialized (S100), and the operation status is confirmed (S110). If there is no result XML is returned (S190), if there is a job event, the database transaction (Transaction) is initiated (S120), and the actual process is executed (S140 ~ S160). Each process goes through a step consisting of initialization (S140), execution (S150) and cleanup (S160) module. When one process is cleaned up, it is determined whether the transaction is terminated (S170). If the transaction is continued, the process is executed again and when the transaction is completed (S180), it is determined again whether or not the corresponding task is terminated (S110). ).

9 shows an example of the flow of a process init (S140) module. This module prepares the data to be used in the execution phase and manipulates the input data appropriately for execution using the data block, input and output field information to be used in the process. In the data block inquiry step (S141), the data block of the data service (or COM, etc.) is inquired, and then the temporary data is input data according to the parameter type (first input data, final output data) defined in the K-WF definition. It generates (S142). In the refinement of the data block to be input (S143), all of the temporary data except for the value selected as In for the In / Out definition for each method in the actual data service are removed, and the temporary data is used as a parameter to be used in the actual data service method. The conversion is made (S144).

As a schematic configuration example is shown in FIG. 10, the process run module S150 executes a data service / COM / web service using data prepared in an initialization step. Execution results are merged or replaced with existing data depending on the type of process being executed. In the database / COM / WS / Script execution step (S151), a database value is obtained (Database / COM / WS) or data is manipulated (Script). The value obtained from the database is generated as temporary data (S152). In operation S153, it is determined whether the type of the data service method is an inquiry and does not work with other values. If in step S153, the type of the data service method is an inquiry, and if it is not interlocked with another value, the resultant data is replaced with temporary data (S154), and even if the type of the data service method is not an inquiry or an inquiry, another value. If it is to be interlocked with and merges the temporary data to the existing result data (S155).

The process end module S160 as shown in FIG. 11 refines the data to be output as a final result by using the data generated in the execution step (S161). And merges with the final result (S162). In the merging in step S162, the result data is generated each time a process called process execution is performed, and the merging is performed by the relationship between the result data.

Meanwhile, the business workflow of the present invention is visualized on the screen of the user terminal through a unit process management program (process viewer), which is illustrated by the viewer screen of FIGS. 12 to 18.

12 is a screen configuration example for registering a business service, and in the screen example, an example of generating a business service related to a business order (business-order). At the top of the screen, the 'Service (Biz) Registration' procedure is displayed on the right side of the UI, and on the right side, 'Service Method Registration' and 'Service K-WF Method Registration' are displayed respectively. FIG. 13 shows an example of a screen configuration for registering a business service method, and is a screen transition to the next step of 'business-order', which is a business service registered by FIG. 12. The business service method registration shown in FIG. 13 relates to the business method registration of 'Order Order', and as shown in the data sheet, the method name is stored, inquired, order generated, deleted rows, stored-model item, inquiry-model There are items such as items, and method types are divided into save, search, and delete.

FIG. 14 is a screen transition to the next step of FIG. 13 and is an example of the screen configuration for registering the business service method K-WF. In this case, the business method is actually configured with K-WF, the database used uses the services already created in the system, and if necessary, the input data or the result data can be manipulated using a script.

15 shows an example of the screen configuration shifted to the step of registering a business service data block, and the data structure (data block) of the business method of business order (business-order) is registered. 16 is a screen example for setting a relationship between a business service data block and a data service data block, and each field in the data block is mapped to each other. Next, as shown in the screen configuration example of FIG. 17, a field to be in / out of each business service method is selected, which relates to service method connection information.

As described above, the present invention has a structure in which a data block is separated and mapped into a business service and a data service. 18 illustrates the relationship between the business service and the data service. The process of creating a data service and the process of generating a business service have independent procedures through each step shown in FIG. However, when defining K-WF during the process of creating a business, the data service already made is used.

On the other hand, the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited by the embodiments explicitly described above. In addition, it should be noted that the protection scope of the present invention may not be limited due to obvious changes or substitutions in the technical field to which the present invention belongs.

1 is a conceptual diagram of a work application work by general coding of a conventional ERP system.

2 is a view showing a general conceptual configuration of a work program according to the present invention.

3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a framework according to the present invention.

4 is a diagram illustrating a system configuration of the business workflow 30 according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a more detailed configuration example of the service area 31 of FIG. 4.

6 is a block diagram showing an example of the entire process configuration for registering a business service using a business workflow according to the present invention.

7 is a diagram schematically illustrating a data block mapping structure according to the present invention.

8 is a flowchart showing a configuration example in which a business workflow is actually executed in an execution region of a business workflow.

9 is a diagram illustrating an execution flow of the process initialization module of FIG. 8.

10 is a diagram illustrating an execution flow of the process execution module of FIG. 8.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an execution flow of the process cleanup module of FIG. 8.

12 is a screen configuration example for registering a business service according to the present invention.

13 is an example screen configuration for registering a business service method according to the present invention.

14 is a screen configuration example of registering a business service method K-WF according to the present invention.

15 is a screen configuration example for registering a business service data block according to the present invention.

16 is a screen configuration example illustrating mapping a business service data block and a data service data block according to the present invention.

17 is a screen configuration example for selecting input / output items for each business service method according to the present invention.

18 is a diagram schematically illustrating a process of generating a data service and a business service according to the present invention.

The accompanying drawings show that they are illustrated as a reference for understanding the technical idea of the present invention, by which the scope of the present invention is not limited.

Claims (12)

A service area including a business service including a business logic and a data service including a business logic separately defined, each including a data block that is a data schema and a method that is an actual execution unit; A business workflow registration area for visualizing through a process viewer and registering a business process defined in the service area; And And a business workflow execution area for executing a business process registered in the business workflow registration area. The process automation system according to the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 1, The business service is registered through the business workflow registration area, and the data service calling a database is made in a process independent of the process in which the business service is generated, and is built on a business in an enterprise resource management system. Process automation system by workflow. The method of claim 1, The business service method includes a data service method, a COM method, a web method, a business workflow work flow method, and the process automation system by the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 1, The method of the data service includes a method for performing an operation of querying, storing, and deleting data in a database, the process automation system according to the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 1, The business workflow registration area, remind A service registration module for registering a business service; A service method registration module for registering the method of the business service; A module for registering a flow of a business workflow in accordance with a procedure including a data service, a web service, and a COM; A module defining a data block of the business service; A data block mapping module for mapping data blocks of the business service and data blocks of the data service; And And an input / output item selection module for selecting a field actually executed in the data block. The method of claim 1, The business service is a process automation system according to a business workflow in the enterprise resource management system, which is defined in units of blocks that perform a specific function in the distributed business logic in the computing environment. As a process automation method by business workflow in enterprise resource management system: Creating a data service that invokes a database and instrumenting it in the system; Registering a business service through a business workflow, which is a process automation engine that visualizes, registers, and executes a business process, mapping the business service with the data service, and then generating a business process; And Executing the generated business process, process automation method by a business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 7, wherein Generating the data service, Defining a data service that invokes a database; Registering a method of the data service; Defining a data block of the data service; Creating a stored procedure (SP) capable of calling a database; And And defining input and output items of the data service. The process automation method according to a business workflow in an enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 7, wherein The business service registered through the business workflow is defined as a block unit that performs a specific function with distributed business logic in a computing environment, process automation by the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 7, wherein Generating the business process, Registering the business service; Defining and registering a method inside the business service; Registering the flow of the business workflow according to a predetermined order using the pre-registered data service; Defining a data block of the business service; Mutually mapping a data block of the business service and a data block of the data service; And Selecting input and output items of the business service, Process automation method according to the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system. The method of claim 8, The method of the data service includes a method for performing an operation of querying, storing, and deleting data in a database. The method of claim 10, The method of the business service, the data service method, COM method, Web method, business workflow method that includes a business workflow method, process automation by the business workflow in the enterprise resource management system.

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