The Design of DECmodel for Windows

The DECmodel for Windows software tool represents a significant advance in the development of business process models. The DECmodel tool allows rapid development of models and graphical representations of business processes by providing a laboratory environment for testing processes before propagating them into workflows. Such an approach can significantly reduce the risk associated with large investments in information technology. The DECmodel design incorporates knowledge-based, simulation, and graphical user interface technology on a PC platform based on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Unique to the design is the manner in which it separates the model of the business processes from the views or presentations of the model.

DEC and Wang Put It All Together / Byte Magazine

DEC (Maynard, MA) has assembled a suite of work-flow, modeling, and groupware products that astutely address the needs of organizations going forward with reengineering and work-flow initiatives. The process modeling part of the product line is DECmodel, a slick piece of modeling code that tracks process-related activities across multiple dimensions, including cost, time, transactions, or whatever the business unit manager wants to monitor. An interesting feature allows you to look at the process from multiple perspectives (e.g., from that of a senior manager, a middle manager, or a technician).

The product allows the modeler to test, verify, and validate ideas for improving business operations, answers "what-if" questions on the work process being mapped, builds working simulations, and runs on standard MS-DOS-compatible PCs or laptops under Windows 3.1. Perhaps most noteworthy about DECmodel is that you can use it as a stand-alone modeling aid or link it with a new product from DEC, code-named RFM (Reliable Flow Manager), which actually generates code. At the time of this writing, RFM just emerged from external field tests. The product has already been incorporated into the RAELS (Rapid Access Electronic Library System), an integrated document management system that Loral Space and Range Systems designed.