A great deal of benefits can be achieved if information and process are integrated within the building design project. This paper aims to establish a prototype of workflow management system for construction design pro...A great deal of benefits can be achieved if information and process are integrated within the building design project. This paper aims to establish a prototype of workflow management system for construction design project through the application of workflow technology. The composition and function of prototype is presented to satisfy the needs of information share and process integration. By integrating all subsystems and modules of the prototype, the whole system can deal with design information-flow modeling, emulating and optimizing, task planning and distributing, automatic tracking and monitoring, as well as network service, etc. In this way, the collaborative design environment of building design proiect is brought into being.展开更多
The state of the art of workflow management techniques in research is introduced. The research and development trends of Workflow Management System (WFMS) are presented. On basis of analysis and comparison of kinds of...The state of the art of workflow management techniques in research is introduced. The research and development trends of Workflow Management System (WFMS) are presented. On basis of analysis and comparison of kinds of WFMSs, a WFMS based on Web technology and distributed object management is proposed. Finally, the application of the WFMS in supply chain management is described in detail.展开更多
Data-centric modeling approach for workflow specification and design has received considerable attention from research and development communities.An architecture for a workflow management system named EZFLOWS was out...Data-centric modeling approach for workflow specification and design has received considerable attention from research and development communities.An architecture for a workflow management system named EZFLOWS was outlined.Key components and research issues associated with the development of EZFLOWS were discussed.展开更多
With the vehement development of global competition , Agile Supply Chain (ASC) becomes an effective approach that supports dynamic ent erprise alliance and realizes agile manufacturing, as for the enterprises to cap t...With the vehement development of global competition , Agile Supply Chain (ASC) becomes an effective approach that supports dynamic ent erprise alliance and realizes agile manufacturing, as for the enterprises to cap ture market opportunities rapidly and strengthen their anti-risk ability. As Ag ile Supply Chain System (ASCS) is dynamic and distributed, the realization of it ’s processes needs to be much flexible. Often in Agile Supply Chain System (ASCS ), there are many dynamic tasks, many changes of the processes, and cooperative workflows, which need the workflows able to be adjusted agilely and smoothly, no t much affecting others. This paper will propose a flexible workflow management for achieving the agility and compatibility. At the first of the paper, we will discuss the situation in which Agile Supply C hain System is applied, and then we will elaborate the characteristics of Agile Supply Chain System. So with that, the shortcomings of the process managements t hat are, at present, used in Supply Chain Systems will be displayed clearly. The n, the proposal will be given in the paper, to resolve the problems in the prese nt process management in ASCS. We will see supply chain systems implemented mult i-agent-based technology to adapt to the dynamic environment, however in many systems, coordination of the workflows is executed by the explicit messages comm unicated between the agents. This will lead to a tightly coupled system. To over come it, the paper suggests the workflow management in agent-based ASCS using t he Events-Triggering mechanism, instead of the explicit messages. We create Eve nts-Triggering contents and rules, having push-pull mechanism, event-state se t and triggering-conditions, and store them in the distributed database subject ed to the corresponding agents. Adjusting the Events-Triggering data will be us ed to adapt to the dynamic tasks and the changes of processes. In sum, we will p resent the methods of process modeling, the system structure, and the executing -mechanism of the flexible workflow management we propose in the paper. Also, t he paper outlines several exception-handling policies for the flexible workflow management, in succession. And at the final of the paper, we discuss the realiz ation of the flexible workflow management in Agile Supply Chain System. The flex ible workflow management will be implemented using CORBA services and Java techn ology for the distributed systems. CORBA is chosen as the specification of distr ibuted electronic data exchange, and Java as the construction tool of the system . The framework of the flexible workflow management constructed on them is showe d in the paper.展开更多
A product-oriented process workflow management model is proposed based on themulti-agent technology. The autonomy, inter-operability, scalability and flexibility of agent areused to cooperate the whole process plannin...A product-oriented process workflow management model is proposed based on themulti-agent technology. The autonomy, inter-operability, scalability and flexibility of agent areused to cooperate the whole process planning and achieve the full share of resource and information.Thus, unnecessary waste of human labor, time and work is reduced and the computer-aided processplanning (CAPP) system's adaptability and stability are improved. In the detailed implementation,according to the products' BOM (Bill of materials) in structural design, the task assignment,management control, automatic process making, process examination and process sanction are combinedinto a unified management to make it convenient for the adjustment, control and management.展开更多
To align customer demand with suppliers for reducing work in process and supply costs and increasing re sp onsiveness to customer requirements, a real time collaborative supply chain mana gement system is essential...To align customer demand with suppliers for reducing work in process and supply costs and increasing re sp onsiveness to customer requirements, a real time collaborative supply chain mana gement system is essential. A solution to the realization of supply chain manage ment capable of timely responding to customer requirements is proposed. Workflow automation is used to manage process interaction across enterprises; Agents can be automatically invoked by supply chain workflow process and are used to pro mote the flexibility and reconfigurability by providing the mechanism in support of distributed compution in an enterprises to meet the requirements of performa nce and business dynamics. An approach that supports agent based workflow proce ss in a supply chain is proposed. And the coordination mechanism between agents is also discussed.展开更多
Nurses are at the forefront of providing healthcare services to individuals of all age groups and with varying medical conditions.Aside from the critical knowledge and technical skills from nursing science,advancement...Nurses are at the forefront of providing healthcare services to individuals of all age groups and with varying medical conditions.Aside from the critical knowledge and technical skills from nursing science,advancement in technology has assisted nurses in delivering quality nursing care by streamlining workflow processes and ensuring that data can easily be retrieved or modified.Electronic health records dramatically changed the landscape of the healthcare practice by providing an electronic means to store data and for healthcare professionals to retrieve and manipulate health information in a secured and collaborative environment.But with the nature of data being stored in the electronic health records,nurses still need to organize and process these data into relevant information,knowledge or wisdom so they can provide better holistic care to patients.This discussion paper details the role of content management systems in addressing nursing workflow by providing a mechanism for nurses to be developers themselves,and not just users or consumers of health innovative technologies.By using content management systems as platform for application development,nurses or other healthcare professionals,may be able to address problems with internal workflow without having to incur huge amounts in software development,or having to extensively learn programming languages.展开更多
Workflow management systems (WfMSs) are accepted worldwide due to their ability to model and control business processes. Previously, we defined an intra-organizational workflow specification model, Process LANguage (P...Workflow management systems (WfMSs) are accepted worldwide due to their ability to model and control business processes. Previously, we defined an intra-organizational workflow specification model, Process LANguage (PLAN). PLAN, with associated tools, allowed a user to describe a graph specification for processes, artifacts, and participants in an organization. PLAN has been successfully implemented in Agentflow to support workflow (Agentflow) applications. PLAN, and most current WfMSs are designed to adopt a centralized architecture so that they can be applied to a single organization. However, in such a structure, participants in Agentflow applications in different organizations cannot serve each other with workflows. In this paper, a service-oriented cooperative workflow model, Cooperative Agentflow Process LANguage (CA-PLAN) is presented. CA-PLAN proposes a workflow component model to model inter-organizational processes. In CA-PLAN, an inter-organizational process is partitioned into several intra-organizational processes. Each workflow system inside an organization is modeled as an Integrated Workflow Component (IWC). Each IWC contains a process service interface, specifying process services provided by an organization, in conjunction with a remote process interface specifying what remote processes are used to refer to remote process services provided by other organizations, and intra-organizational processes. An IWC is a workflow node and participant. An inter-organizational process is made up of connections among these process services and remote processes with respect to different IWCs. In this paper, the related service techniques and supporting tools provided in Agentflow systems are presented.展开更多
Purpose:.To explore and establish a rational management workflow for a free cataract surgery program for the poor population in urban China, aiming to improve surgical efficiency.Methods:.Establishment of a management...Purpose:.To explore and establish a rational management workflow for a free cataract surgery program for the poor population in urban China, aiming to improve surgical efficiency.Methods:.Establishment of a management workflow mainly includes system design and an auxiliary facility. System design procedures consist of outpatient screening, outpatient physical examination,.surgical procedures,.and postoperative clinic visits. After establishing the management workflow of cataract surgery, a free cataract surgery program was conducted for 15 months.Results: Based upon the established management mode, 9003 patients received preoperative screening and 2358 underwent cataract surgery..During the 15-month investigation,.each procedure was successfully conducted,.the efficiency of screening and operation attained the highest standards in China,.and no surgical malpractice occurred intraoperatively.Conclusion:.In this study,.a management workflow for cataract surgery was designed for a poverty relief project in urban China. During the 15-month project, the degree of patient satisfaction was enhanced without disrupting the normal practice and safety of the sponsor hospital.展开更多
This paper attempts to solve the complexity of scheduling problems and meet the requirement of the ever-changing manufacturing environment. In this paper, a new Workflow-Based Scheduling System (WBSS) is proposed. The...This paper attempts to solve the complexity of scheduling problems and meet the requirement of the ever-changing manufacturing environment. In this paper, a new Workflow-Based Scheduling System (WBSS) is proposed. The integration of Workflow Management System (WfMS) and rule-based scheduler provides us an effective way of generating a task-sheet according to the states of system and the scheduled objects. First, the definition of workflow model for scheduling is proposed, and following are the architecture and mechanism of the proposed WBSS. At last, an application is given to show how the established system works.展开更多
Workflow management is an important aspect in CSCW at present. The elementary knowledge of workflow process is introduced, the Petri nets based process modeling methodology and basic definitions are provided, and the ...Workflow management is an important aspect in CSCW at present. The elementary knowledge of workflow process is introduced, the Petri nets based process modeling methodology and basic definitions are provided, and the analysis and verification of structural and behavioral correctness of workflow process are discussed. Finally, the algorithm of verification of process definitions is proposed.展开更多
The goals of B2B electronic commerce and supply chain management system are to implement interoperability of independent enterprises, to smooth the information flow between them and to deploy business processes over m...The goals of B2B electronic commerce and supply chain management system are to implement interoperability of independent enterprises, to smooth the information flow between them and to deploy business processes over multiple enterprises. The inherent characteristics of workflow system make it suitable to implement the cross organization management. This paper, firstly, proposes an inter enterprises workflow model based on the agreement to support the construction of supply chain management system and B2B electronic commerce. This model has extended the standard workflow model. After that, an architecture which supports the model has been introduced, especially it details the structure and implementation of interfaces between enterprises.展开更多
In a cloud-native era,the Kubernetes-based workflow engine enables workflow containerized execution through the inherent abilities of Kubernetes.However,when encountering continuous workflow requests and unexpected re...In a cloud-native era,the Kubernetes-based workflow engine enables workflow containerized execution through the inherent abilities of Kubernetes.However,when encountering continuous workflow requests and unexpected resource request spikes,the engine is limited to the current workflow load information for resource allocation,which lacks the agility and predictability of resource allocation,resulting in over and underprovisioning resources.This mechanism seriously hinders workflow execution efficiency and leads to high resource waste.To overcome these drawbacks,we propose an adaptive resource allocation scheme named adaptive resource allocation scheme(ARAS)for the Kubernetes-based workflow engines.Considering potential future workflow task requests within the current task pod’s lifecycle,the ARAS uses a resource scaling strategy to allocate resources in response to high-concurrency workflow scenarios.The ARAS offers resource discovery,resource evaluation,and allocation functionalities and serves as a key component for our tailored workflow engine(KubeAdaptor).By integrating the ARAS into KubeAdaptor for workflow containerized execution,we demonstrate the practical abilities of KubeAdaptor and the advantages of our ARAS.Compared with the baseline algorithm,experimental evaluation under three distinct workflow arrival patterns shows that ARAS gains time-saving of 9.8% to 40.92% in the average total duration of all workflows,time-saving of 26.4% to 79.86% in the average duration of individual workflow,and an increase of 1% to 16% in centrol processing unit(CPU)and memory resource usage rate.展开更多
The interactive task allocation process between workflow management system(WFMS) and resources in real bussiness is analyzed. A series of fundamental workflow resource allocation patterns (WRAPs) are identified. T...The interactive task allocation process between workflow management system(WFMS) and resources in real bussiness is analyzed. A series of fundamental workflow resource allocation patterns (WRAPs) are identified. These patterns provide the basis for the design of the more adaptive workflow system. A WRAP framework is proposed to provide a referenced classification system for further pattern extensions.展开更多
Aim: To improve workflow and usability by introduction of a new electronic patient record (EPR) and database. Methods: Establishment of an EPR based on open source technology (MySQL database and PI-IP scripting l...Aim: To improve workflow and usability by introduction of a new electronic patient record (EPR) and database. Methods: Establishment of an EPR based on open source technology (MySQL database and PI-IP scripting language) in a tertiary care andrology center at a university clinic. Workflow analysis, a benchmark comparing the two systems and a survey for usability and ergonomics were carried out. Results: Workflow optimizations (electronic ordering of laboratory analysis, elimination of transcription steps and automated referral letters) and the decrease in time required for data entry per patient to 71% ± 27%, P 〈 0.05, lead to a workload reduction. The benchmark showed a significant performance increase (highest with starting the respective system: 1.3 ± 0.2 s vs. 11.1 ± 0.2 s, mean ± SD). In the survey, users rated the new system at least two ranks higher over its predecessor (P 〈 0.01) in all sub-areas. Conclusion: With further improvements, today's EPR can evolve to substitute paper records, saving time (and possibly costs), supporting user satisfaction and expanding the basis for scientific evaluation when more data is electronically available. Newly introduced systems should be versatile, adaptable for users, and workflow-oriented to yield the highest benefit. If ready-made software is purchased, customization should be implemented during rollout. (Asian J Andro12006 Mar; 8: 235-241)展开更多
基金Supported by the Doctorate Degree Program Foundation of the State Education Ministry (yu ji[2003] 172 ) and the Scientific Research Foundation for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars under the State Education Ministry (jiao wai si[2003] 14)
文摘A great deal of benefits can be achieved if information and process are integrated within the building design project. This paper aims to establish a prototype of workflow management system for construction design project through the application of workflow technology. The composition and function of prototype is presented to satisfy the needs of information share and process integration. By integrating all subsystems and modules of the prototype, the whole system can deal with design information-flow modeling, emulating and optimizing, task planning and distributing, automatic tracking and monitoring, as well as network service, etc. In this way, the collaborative design environment of building design proiect is brought into being.
文摘The state of the art of workflow management techniques in research is introduced. The research and development trends of Workflow Management System (WFMS) are presented. On basis of analysis and comparison of kinds of WFMSs, a WFMS based on Web technology and distributed object management is proposed. Finally, the application of the WFMS in supply chain management is described in detail.
基金Project supported by the NSF(No.IIS-0812578),the Grant from IBM to UCSB,and the Grant from China Scholarship Council
文摘Data-centric modeling approach for workflow specification and design has received considerable attention from research and development communities.An architecture for a workflow management system named EZFLOWS was outlined.Key components and research issues associated with the development of EZFLOWS were discussed.
文摘With the vehement development of global competition , Agile Supply Chain (ASC) becomes an effective approach that supports dynamic ent erprise alliance and realizes agile manufacturing, as for the enterprises to cap ture market opportunities rapidly and strengthen their anti-risk ability. As Ag ile Supply Chain System (ASCS) is dynamic and distributed, the realization of it ’s processes needs to be much flexible. Often in Agile Supply Chain System (ASCS ), there are many dynamic tasks, many changes of the processes, and cooperative workflows, which need the workflows able to be adjusted agilely and smoothly, no t much affecting others. This paper will propose a flexible workflow management for achieving the agility and compatibility. At the first of the paper, we will discuss the situation in which Agile Supply C hain System is applied, and then we will elaborate the characteristics of Agile Supply Chain System. So with that, the shortcomings of the process managements t hat are, at present, used in Supply Chain Systems will be displayed clearly. The n, the proposal will be given in the paper, to resolve the problems in the prese nt process management in ASCS. We will see supply chain systems implemented mult i-agent-based technology to adapt to the dynamic environment, however in many systems, coordination of the workflows is executed by the explicit messages comm unicated between the agents. This will lead to a tightly coupled system. To over come it, the paper suggests the workflow management in agent-based ASCS using t he Events-Triggering mechanism, instead of the explicit messages. We create Eve nts-Triggering contents and rules, having push-pull mechanism, event-state se t and triggering-conditions, and store them in the distributed database subject ed to the corresponding agents. Adjusting the Events-Triggering data will be us ed to adapt to the dynamic tasks and the changes of processes. In sum, we will p resent the methods of process modeling, the system structure, and the executing -mechanism of the flexible workflow management we propose in the paper. Also, t he paper outlines several exception-handling policies for the flexible workflow management, in succession. And at the final of the paper, we discuss the realiz ation of the flexible workflow management in Agile Supply Chain System. The flex ible workflow management will be implemented using CORBA services and Java techn ology for the distributed systems. CORBA is chosen as the specification of distr ibuted electronic data exchange, and Java as the construction tool of the system . The framework of the flexible workflow management constructed on them is showe d in the paper.
基金This project is supported by AS/400 Research Foundation of IBM of China (No. 2001).
文摘A product-oriented process workflow management model is proposed based on themulti-agent technology. The autonomy, inter-operability, scalability and flexibility of agent areused to cooperate the whole process planning and achieve the full share of resource and information.Thus, unnecessary waste of human labor, time and work is reduced and the computer-aided processplanning (CAPP) system's adaptability and stability are improved. In the detailed implementation,according to the products' BOM (Bill of materials) in structural design, the task assignment,management control, automatic process making, process examination and process sanction are combinedinto a unified management to make it convenient for the adjustment, control and management.
文摘To align customer demand with suppliers for reducing work in process and supply costs and increasing re sp onsiveness to customer requirements, a real time collaborative supply chain mana gement system is essential. A solution to the realization of supply chain manage ment capable of timely responding to customer requirements is proposed. Workflow automation is used to manage process interaction across enterprises; Agents can be automatically invoked by supply chain workflow process and are used to pro mote the flexibility and reconfigurability by providing the mechanism in support of distributed compution in an enterprises to meet the requirements of performa nce and business dynamics. An approach that supports agent based workflow proce ss in a supply chain is proposed. And the coordination mechanism between agents is also discussed.
文摘Nurses are at the forefront of providing healthcare services to individuals of all age groups and with varying medical conditions.Aside from the critical knowledge and technical skills from nursing science,advancement in technology has assisted nurses in delivering quality nursing care by streamlining workflow processes and ensuring that data can easily be retrieved or modified.Electronic health records dramatically changed the landscape of the healthcare practice by providing an electronic means to store data and for healthcare professionals to retrieve and manipulate health information in a secured and collaborative environment.But with the nature of data being stored in the electronic health records,nurses still need to organize and process these data into relevant information,knowledge or wisdom so they can provide better holistic care to patients.This discussion paper details the role of content management systems in addressing nursing workflow by providing a mechanism for nurses to be developers themselves,and not just users or consumers of health innovative technologies.By using content management systems as platform for application development,nurses or other healthcare professionals,may be able to address problems with internal workflow without having to incur huge amounts in software development,or having to extensively learn programming languages.
文摘Workflow management systems (WfMSs) are accepted worldwide due to their ability to model and control business processes. Previously, we defined an intra-organizational workflow specification model, Process LANguage (PLAN). PLAN, with associated tools, allowed a user to describe a graph specification for processes, artifacts, and participants in an organization. PLAN has been successfully implemented in Agentflow to support workflow (Agentflow) applications. PLAN, and most current WfMSs are designed to adopt a centralized architecture so that they can be applied to a single organization. However, in such a structure, participants in Agentflow applications in different organizations cannot serve each other with workflows. In this paper, a service-oriented cooperative workflow model, Cooperative Agentflow Process LANguage (CA-PLAN) is presented. CA-PLAN proposes a workflow component model to model inter-organizational processes. In CA-PLAN, an inter-organizational process is partitioned into several intra-organizational processes. Each workflow system inside an organization is modeled as an Integrated Workflow Component (IWC). Each IWC contains a process service interface, specifying process services provided by an organization, in conjunction with a remote process interface specifying what remote processes are used to refer to remote process services provided by other organizations, and intra-organizational processes. An IWC is a workflow node and participant. An inter-organizational process is made up of connections among these process services and remote processes with respect to different IWCs. In this paper, the related service techniques and supporting tools provided in Agentflow systems are presented.
文摘Purpose:.To explore and establish a rational management workflow for a free cataract surgery program for the poor population in urban China, aiming to improve surgical efficiency.Methods:.Establishment of a management workflow mainly includes system design and an auxiliary facility. System design procedures consist of outpatient screening, outpatient physical examination,.surgical procedures,.and postoperative clinic visits. After establishing the management workflow of cataract surgery, a free cataract surgery program was conducted for 15 months.Results: Based upon the established management mode, 9003 patients received preoperative screening and 2358 underwent cataract surgery..During the 15-month investigation,.each procedure was successfully conducted,.the efficiency of screening and operation attained the highest standards in China,.and no surgical malpractice occurred intraoperatively.Conclusion:.In this study,.a management workflow for cataract surgery was designed for a poverty relief project in urban China. During the 15-month project, the degree of patient satisfaction was enhanced without disrupting the normal practice and safety of the sponsor hospital.
文摘This paper attempts to solve the complexity of scheduling problems and meet the requirement of the ever-changing manufacturing environment. In this paper, a new Workflow-Based Scheduling System (WBSS) is proposed. The integration of Workflow Management System (WfMS) and rule-based scheduler provides us an effective way of generating a task-sheet according to the states of system and the scheduled objects. First, the definition of workflow model for scheduling is proposed, and following are the architecture and mechanism of the proposed WBSS. At last, an application is given to show how the established system works.
文摘Workflow management is an important aspect in CSCW at present. The elementary knowledge of workflow process is introduced, the Petri nets based process modeling methodology and basic definitions are provided, and the analysis and verification of structural and behavioral correctness of workflow process are discussed. Finally, the algorithm of verification of process definitions is proposed.
文摘The goals of B2B electronic commerce and supply chain management system are to implement interoperability of independent enterprises, to smooth the information flow between them and to deploy business processes over multiple enterprises. The inherent characteristics of workflow system make it suitable to implement the cross organization management. This paper, firstly, proposes an inter enterprises workflow model based on the agreement to support the construction of supply chain management system and B2B electronic commerce. This model has extended the standard workflow model. After that, an architecture which supports the model has been introduced, especially it details the structure and implementation of interfaces between enterprises.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61873030,62002019).
文摘In a cloud-native era,the Kubernetes-based workflow engine enables workflow containerized execution through the inherent abilities of Kubernetes.However,when encountering continuous workflow requests and unexpected resource request spikes,the engine is limited to the current workflow load information for resource allocation,which lacks the agility and predictability of resource allocation,resulting in over and underprovisioning resources.This mechanism seriously hinders workflow execution efficiency and leads to high resource waste.To overcome these drawbacks,we propose an adaptive resource allocation scheme named adaptive resource allocation scheme(ARAS)for the Kubernetes-based workflow engines.Considering potential future workflow task requests within the current task pod’s lifecycle,the ARAS uses a resource scaling strategy to allocate resources in response to high-concurrency workflow scenarios.The ARAS offers resource discovery,resource evaluation,and allocation functionalities and serves as a key component for our tailored workflow engine(KubeAdaptor).By integrating the ARAS into KubeAdaptor for workflow containerized execution,we demonstrate the practical abilities of KubeAdaptor and the advantages of our ARAS.Compared with the baseline algorithm,experimental evaluation under three distinct workflow arrival patterns shows that ARAS gains time-saving of 9.8% to 40.92% in the average total duration of all workflows,time-saving of 26.4% to 79.86% in the average duration of individual workflow,and an increase of 1% to 16% in centrol processing unit(CPU)and memory resource usage rate.
文摘The interactive task allocation process between workflow management system(WFMS) and resources in real bussiness is analyzed. A series of fundamental workflow resource allocation patterns (WRAPs) are identified. These patterns provide the basis for the design of the more adaptive workflow system. A WRAP framework is proposed to provide a referenced classification system for further pattern extensions.
文摘Aim: To improve workflow and usability by introduction of a new electronic patient record (EPR) and database. Methods: Establishment of an EPR based on open source technology (MySQL database and PI-IP scripting language) in a tertiary care andrology center at a university clinic. Workflow analysis, a benchmark comparing the two systems and a survey for usability and ergonomics were carried out. Results: Workflow optimizations (electronic ordering of laboratory analysis, elimination of transcription steps and automated referral letters) and the decrease in time required for data entry per patient to 71% ± 27%, P 〈 0.05, lead to a workload reduction. The benchmark showed a significant performance increase (highest with starting the respective system: 1.3 ± 0.2 s vs. 11.1 ± 0.2 s, mean ± SD). In the survey, users rated the new system at least two ranks higher over its predecessor (P 〈 0.01) in all sub-areas. Conclusion: With further improvements, today's EPR can evolve to substitute paper records, saving time (and possibly costs), supporting user satisfaction and expanding the basis for scientific evaluation when more data is electronically available. Newly introduced systems should be versatile, adaptable for users, and workflow-oriented to yield the highest benefit. If ready-made software is purchased, customization should be implemented during rollout. (Asian J Andro12006 Mar; 8: 235-241)