Analysing and redesigning a remote sensing business process for rapid estimates of agriculture in Europe

Describes the application of the Action Workflow approach to analyse a European project for monitoring agriculture from high resolution satellite images by using remote sensing techniques. The objective of this study was to improve and maintain co‐ordination between the organizations involved in the remote sensing process which evolved from a pilot phase and became operational. The study of the existing process was supported by the workflow product ActionWorkflow Analyst. Breakdowns and possible weaknesses identified in the previous process are reported. On the basis of a critical process review, the process is rationalized with an explicit visibility of customers, suppliers, organizational roles, activities and their communicative relationship. The re‐engineered process improves the service to customers in the European Commission (i.e. DG VI and Eurostat) and reduces transaction costs due to notably less customer/supplier interactions. Furthermore, there is a clear distinction between recurrent operations (done with more efficiency than in the actual process) and strategic services (with an added value to the management of ad hoc requests in the previous process). The newly designed business process has been prototyped using the workflow suite by Action Technologies. Evaluates the appropriateness of the ActionWorkflow approach and the systems ActionWorkflow Analyst, Builder and Manager for Lotus Notes.