Aladin: an Information System for Process-centered Cooperative Editing

In order to improve quality, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can take significant advantages by adopting workflow systems. However, the risk of adopting a workflow system is to make too rigid the way the enterprise works; the direct consequence is the loss of flexibility, winning success factor for dynamic SMEs. In this paper we introduce the Aladin system. This is an information system that supports process-oriented cooperative work, and in particular process-oriented cooperative document editing. In fact, it is based on the concept of business process, which is intended as a sequence of cooperative activites. The goal of each activity is the generation of documents, which usually involves several people and enterprise units. Nevertheless, the Aladin system keeps history of past procedures; this way, a knowledge base about past procedures and documents is built by the day by day use of the system.