面對全球化的趨勢之下，企業必須要在最短時間內，設計完成符合市場需求的產品，快速上市，搶得市場先機，因此在既有的組織架構中，能迅速成軍的專案便扮演了重要的角色。除此之外，網路機制的發達造成了專案協同產品設計，透過資訊的快速傳播，專案工作的進行，變成可以讓散布在全球各地的相關人員共同執行，以快速地完成產品的設計，並提高產品品質。在這樣的環境之下，傳統人工化的工作流程方式已不再適用，運用自動化的工作流程管理系統 (WfMS) 在限定的期限之內，考慮資源、成本、流程、進度控制等因子，讓工作能自行驅動，且視情況即時修改流程，成為了一個新的課題。
本研究是利用專家系統的推論引擎於工作流程中心的流程推進機制，推論引擎是利用知識庫中的事實與規則來進行推論，將專案以及專案任務的所有資訊，皆以事實呈現，並以規則來控制流程的走向與相關的指派行動。表示各任務的事實除了一般基本的任務資料外，還包含了任務的進行狀態以及產出的結果。因此工作任務的起始規則，可透過找尋對應前置任務的事實，以判斷前置任務的進行狀態以及產出結果是否在預先定義好的範圍之內。各任務的產出結果會儲存在本身的事實中，因此後續的工作任務可以依此與流程規則相比，推論出流程分支分流或是迴流的情況。整個研究的推論過程，在於事實的變動引發規則的滿足，而觸發產生新的事實或是變更既有的事實，對應到各工作任務狀態的改變，造成專案流程的推進，對於附有規則條件的流程提供了有效的運行機制。最後，以此雛形系統架構，並搭配使用JESS (Java Expert System Shell) 實際開發出原型系統，藉以驗證以此推論引擎為基之工作流程管理系統的可行性。

Since the complexity of products and their design processes has increased, products are now designed collaboratively by many companies around the world. Thus, it is very important that new product development is properly managed using formal project management (PM) tools electronically. While traditional PM focuses on scheduling and planning of projects, current PM focuses on managing the processes because the project length and result are directly affected by its process. The concept of using workflow management in PM is to regard a project as a series of processes and makes this process flow automatically. The objective of this research is to establish a workflow management system to manage project flow, especially when process logics embed with rules that may drive the flow. The focus is on using an expert system’s inference engine which infers according to ‘facts’ and ‘rules’ for directions of the processes. In our research, we use ‘facts’ to represent the projects, tasks, resources, etc, while ‘rules’ to define relations of tasks in a project flow. The fact of each task contains not only the basic information but also the status and result of the task. The rules that control the start of each task can be fulfilled according to corresponding facts of previous tasks. Thus, rules are triggered by the inference engine and facts are modified subsequently so the process status can be changed accordingly. The direction of a project flow can be decided based on facts, which represent tasks, and pre-defined rules. Thus, the project output can be controlled precisely to meet customers’ requirements. The research contributes to manage some complex project processes imbedded logical rules for the looping of the processes.

中文部份
[1] 王偉宇，「協同設計與工作流程之探討」，碩士論文（指導教授：尤春風），國立臺灣大學機械工程學研究所，2003。
[2] 邱政興，「以工作流程為基之協同專案管理平台－以IC設計專案為例」，碩士論文（指導教授：張瑞芬），國立清華大學工業工程與工程管理學系，2003。
[3] 林逸群，「應用專家系統於中央空調系統之故障診斷」，碩士論文（指導教授：陳昭榮），國立台北科技大學電機工程學系，2001。
[4] 洪勖芳，「全球化協同式產品開發之知識整合與智慧資產管理－以系統單晶片產品開發為例」，碩士論文（指導教授：朱詣尹），國立清華大學工業工程與工程管理學系，2001。
[5] 莊宗文，「運用三維同步工程於知識網路上之整合性產品開發」，碩士論文（指導教授：朱詣尹），國立清華大學工業工程與工程管理學系，2002。
[6] 陳俊伊，「同步工程應用於新產品開發專案工作協調之研究」，碩士論文（指導教授：張光旭），國立台北科技大學生產系統工程與管理研究所，2002。
[7] 張瑞芬，姚銀河，「企業流程元件運用在系統整合之研究」，財團法人中衛發展中心分包學術機構研究計畫期中研究成果報告，國立清華大學，2001。
[8] 蓋瑞•哈肯。專案管理立即上手（丁惠民 譯），臺北市：美商麥格羅•希爾國際股份有限公司，台灣分公司，2002。
[9] 簡君穎，「以網際網路為基之工作流程管理系統設計」，碩士論文（指導教授：張瑞芬），國立清華大學工業工程與工程管理學系，2002。

英文部份
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網站
[35] Rete演算法，http://www.cis.temple.edu/~ingargio/cis587/readings/rete.html#2
[36] Rete演算法，http://cindy.cis.nctu.edu.tw/AI96/team08/ai13.htm
[37] Jess, the Rule Engine for the Java Platform, http://herzberg.ca.sandia.gov/jess