Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-30
2003-09-16
Powell, Mark R. (Department: 2142)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
C345S215000, C345S215000, C709S241000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06621505
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of enterprise work flow management tools, and more particularly, to computer tools for designing and implementing integrated enterprise processes on computer systems using standardized screens.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Using enterprise software to accomplish a business process can be an extremely complicated undertaking today, given the plethora of different systems and complex interfaces that people must manipulate. The tremendous information technology advancements that have occurred over the past twenty-five years have changed virtually every aspect of business. Enormous business value has been generated by the investments that companies have made in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, databases, desktop applications, best-of-breed solutions, legacy systems, and other technologies. Unfortunately, most firms are unable to realize the full benefits of these investments because the usability of their systems has lagged behind the improvements in hardware, infrastructure, and applications. Consequently, it is crucial that these companies find ways to make their computer systems easier to use. The computer usability problem is being driven by several trends that are changing today's business environment. More and more business functions across the enterprise are beginning to employ computer applications. At the same time the number and types of software applications used to accomplish business processes are proliferating. Also, software has continued to increase in complexity and become rich with unnecessary, extraneous features. Moreover, due to diminishing computer hardware costs, software products have been able to avoid using computer resources efficiently. Compounding the problem, the integration of systems within an enterprise has caused those systems to become more complex.
It is common to find many, if not all, of these trends working together within an organization to drive up information system complexity. This interaction adversely affects usability at multiple levels within the enterprise, due to the simultaneous contributions of software applications, business processes and functions, and system integration. A key difficulty has been the way in which information systems have been defined as merely a group of applications that automate tasks to improve the efficiency and/or accuracy of specific work activities. This application-centric view of systems is commonly referred to as the application model. This model was a much better fit with the way that people used to work within companies, rather than the broader process orientation that many companies have today.
Application functionality is a key driver of competition in the software industry, and this has caused developers to focus on the race for additional features, at the expense of software usability. However, more powerful applications do not necessarily yield more productive workers. Today's application software provides a high degree of functionality, of which only a small fraction ever gets used. For any individual user most features will be useless. The more objects shown to a user, the longer it will take the user to find the ones they need. Even if it only takes the user half a second to check features they do not need, at the end of the year, many hours may have been wasted. Also, it may be difficult for many users in a business environment to map the correct application functions, in the correct order, to their business process objectives. Adding features that have less and less utility has made it more difficult for typical business users to find the correct features to achieve their objectives, because there is a larger set to choose from. The bottom line is that these extra features waste user time and system resources.
These usability problems are compounded when a business process requires users to use several different applications to accomplish their goal, a common situation in most organizations. In fact, it is estimated that approximately eighty percent of information workers have to learn and stay competent in at least six different software applications to do their job. Even companies that have invested heavily in ERP systems and enterprise application integration are finding this to be true, because they are unable run their entire business on just one information system.
Business users today must use very complex software applications, and plenty of them, to get their work done. The difficulty that people encounter when using enterprise software contributes to poor customer service and lost business opportunities. The costs and time required to train and provide technical support for information workers continue to rise. Even after people are trained, it is hard for companies to retain their intellectual capital due to turnover and undocumented “work around” processes. All of these issues prevent companies from realizing the intrinsic business value that currently exists within their corporate information systems.
The information technology (IT) departments of some enterprises may attempt to solve some of the above problems by creating custom enterprise software tools for specific business processes employed in their respective enterprises. However, development of custom software is an extremely arduous task that most IT departments lack the time and/or skill to accomplish. Fourth generation programming languages and graphical programming tools, such as Visual Basic or PowerBuilder, may assist in development time and ease, however, even with such modem development tools, development time and difficulty may be prohibitive. Such modem development tools provide component-based programming which allows the developer to simply select a component or object for displaying a data field or a dialog box. Modern development tools may provide many such components from which the developer must select the appropriate one. Once the developer has selected a component, the component must still be mapped to the data which it displays. For example, a component may be used to display a field of data from a database. In addition to specifying the database entry to which the component is mapped, the developer must also specify such parameters as the length and format of the display field, the location of the component on the display, etc. Component mapping typically requires a large portion of the development time.
Also, the process developer may want to have data validation functionality associated with each component to ensure that only proper data entries are received. For example, in a component for currency data or time data, it may be desirable to ensure that data entered is in the correct currency or time format. To accomplish this, the developer may have to code specific validation logic associated with each component. Validation coding may significantly add to the overall development time.
Furthermore, numerous components are typically involved for each user interface or display used to accomplish a task or process. The data mapping and validation described above may need to be repeated for each component. Thus, component data mapping and validation coding typically consume a large portion of development time. Also, as business tasks and processes become more complicated, more and more components may be added to a user interface to accomplish the tasks or processes. Not only does this complexity lengthen development time, but the usability of the user interface typically decreases with complexity. A display or user interface containing multiple components to perform various functions and tasks simultaneously may require a lengthy learning curve for a business user, such as a warehouse worker or sales person. Also, the complexity may lead to more mistakes in using the user interface.
Another problem faced by enterprise IT departments is that once enterprise software is developed to accomplish a business process, the executable code must be distributed to each user's computer. Not only is distribution of execut
Baker Brian L.
Beauchamp Robert E.
Skufca James D.
Wooldridge Brett K.
Journee Software Corp.
Kowert Robert C.
Meyertons, Hood, Kilvin, Kowert & Goetzel, P.C.
Powell Mark R.
Prieto Beatriz
LandOfFree
Dynamic process-based enterprise computing system and method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Dynamic process-based enterprise computing system and method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Dynamic process-based enterprise computing system and method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3098842