Patent ID: 7979297

Claim:
A workflow analysis tool comprising: a system that collects state information of customer orders for products or services in a workflow, wherein the workflow includes multiple stages fulfilling the customer orders, and wherein the state information for each of the customer orders includes an indication of a current one of the multiple stages in the workflow; and a user interface coupled to the system that displays a selectable item for each of the multiple stages in the workflow, wherein upon selecting one of the selectable items the user interface further displays a historical trend of quantities of customer orders as a function of time associated with one of the multiple stages in the workflow corresponding with the selected selectable item, wherein, for each unit of time in the historical trend, the historical trend includes a quantity of customer orders that have not transitioned out of the stage, a quantity of customer orders that have transitioned out of the stage, and a total quantity of customer orders in the stage, wherein one or more of an increasing quantity of customer orders that have not transitioned out of the stage, a decreasing quantity of customer orders that have transitioned out of the stage, or an increasing trend in a quantity of customer orders in the stage when the increasing trend is not in others of the multiple stages of the workflow indicates a bottleneck in the stage, wherein each of the quantities of customer orders associated with the stage is selectable, and wherein upon selecting one of the selectable quantities, additional information associated with the selected quantity of customer orders is displayed.