From: teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Gunnar Teege)
Subject: Re: Request: Information about activity support systems
Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, TU Muenchen, Germany
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 17:04:07 GMT

>>>>> On Wed, 28 Oct 1992 14:11:11 GMT, I (teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de) said:

> I am interested in any information about systems of the kind
> described below. I would like to hear about existing noncommercial
> or commercial systems as well as about systems planned or in
> development. You may reply by mail, I will post a summary of all
> replies in comp.groupware.

> (description of systems supporting the coordination and execution of
> activities)

I received three answers by email and one answer directly in this
group. Besides this, in the meantime I found some additional
information myself. It seems that generally systems separate between
supporting work coordination and supporting the work itself. The
latter is mainly planned or must be done outside of the system.

The following list is a summary of the results. (The order is of no
significance)

(If YOU and YOUR SYSTEM are not mentioned: That's because you did not
tell me about. Do it!)

1) Action Workflow (commercial)
-------------------------------

A technology / toolkit which may be used in other systems for workflow
management. Currently mainly by Lotus (Product: Lotus Workflow).

References:
- paper in CSCW'92 proceedings, available from ACM (p.281).
- Release1.0 9-92 (30 sep 92) (a monthly report)
  EDventure Holdings Inc., New York
- Report by Action Technologies, 1301 Marina Village Parkway, 
  Suite 100, Almeda, Calif. 94501

2) ELF Technologies (commercial)
--------------------------------

Notes-based systems with software agents called 'elves'. 
 "The elves don't just manage workflow; they do the actual work."

References:
- Release1.0 9-92 (30 sep 92) (a monthly report)
  EDventure Holdings Inc., New York

3) Michele / RT-Michele (research)
----------------------------------

(cited from mail:)
RT-Michele is extended version of Michele and it can handle both
sysnchronous and asynchronous communication among workers by using
video conference system.  Both groupware systems are based on
multiagent model that can describe parallel activities of workers and
software processes in distributed environments.  By using software
processes the model can describe documents passed among users,
processes that can assist workers, and so on.  One of target
application of those systems is office document processing automation.

References:

@article{Nakauchi92a,
    author="Y.~Nakauchi and Y.~Itoh and M.~Sato and Y.~Anzai",
    title="Modelling and Implementation of Multiagent Interface System
for Computer-Supported Co-operative Work",
    journal="Ergonomics",
    year="1992",
    volume="35",
    number="5/6",
    pages="565--576"
}

@inproceedings{Nakauchi91b,
    author="Y.~Nakauchi and Y.~Itoh and M.~Sato and Y.~Anzai",
    title="Michele: A Multi-agent Interface Architecture for
Distributed Open Environments",
    booktitle="Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems
(TOOLS '91)",
    year="1991",
    pages="61--69"
}

@inproceedings{Nakauchi91c,
    author="Y.~Nakauchi and T.~Okada and Y.~Itoh and Y.~Anzai",
    title="Groupware that Learns",
    booktitle="IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and
Signal Processing",
    year="1991",
    pages="688--691"
}

@inproceedings{Nakauchi92d,
    author="Y.~Nakauchi and E.~Miyoshi and T.~Okada and Y.~Anzai",
    title="Computer-Mediated Cooperative Work in Distributed Office
Environment",
    booktitle="International Conference on Economics/Management and Information
Technology (CEMIT92/CECOIA3)",
    year="1992",
    pages="295--298"
}

Contact: 
;   Yasushi Nakauchi (nakauchi@aa.cs.keio.ac.jp)
;;   Anzai-Amano Lab., Dept. of Computer Science, Keio Univ.
;;;   TEL: +81-45-560-1070  FAX: +81-45-560-1064

4)  Universitaet-GH Paderborn (research)
----------------------------------------

System in early development. (cited from mail:)
A "workflow-enabled groupware system" based on the development
platform of Lotus Notes. The aim is to support the structuring and
tracking of all activities involved with editing and routing of
documents.
It is planned to support programmed activities.

Contact:
 Wolfgang Hilpert
 EUCOS (Enduser Computing / Office Systems)
 Universitaet-GH Paderborn
 Wirtschaftsinformatik 2
 Warburger Str. 100
 4790 Paderborn - Germany

 Internet    : Whilpert.Notes@MHS.UNI-Paderborn.de
      Voice  : (49) 52 51 / 60 3889
      FAX    : (49) 52 51 / 60 3399

5) Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg (research)
---------------------------------------------

References:

Reinwald, Wedekind: Integrierte Aktivitaeten- und Datenverwaltung zur
   systemgestuetzten Kontroll- und Datenflussteuerung.
   Informatik Forschung und Entwicklung 7 (1992): 73-82

Reinwald, B.: Ablaufsteuerung in CIM-Systemen.
   CIM Management 6/92

Reinwald, B.; Wedekind, H.: Automation of Control and Data Flow in Distributed
   Application Systems.
   In: Tjoa, A.; Ramos, I. (eds.): Database and Expert Systems Applications.
   Proceedings of the International Conference (DEXA '92, Valencia, Spain).
   Wien et al.: Springer-Verlag, 1992, S. 475-481

Contact:
 Berthold Reinwald                       reinwald@informatik.uni-erlangen.de
 Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg         Tel.: +49-9131-85-7901 
 Lehrstuhl fuer Datenbanksysteme         Fax:  +49-9131-32090 
 Martensstr. 3, W-8520 Erlangen          

6) EuroCoOp (research)
----------------------

Esprit-Project "aims to develop powerful and effective systems for
supporting distributed cooperative work." Currently a Model and a
Toolkit for task coordination is developed. Supporting the tasks is
planned. 

References:

- P. Hennessy, T. Kreifelts, U. Ehrlich: Distributed work management:
  activity coordination within the EuroCoOp project. In: computer
  communications, vol. 15 no. 8 October 1992


Gunnar Teege   Inst. fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
               PO-Box 202420, 8000 Muenchen 2, Germany
teege@informatik.tu-muenchen.de       Tel: +49 89 450552 25