Introduction
Gatekeeper has developed an industry unique ‘Kanban’ style workflow engine that is completely integrated into the module stack.
Any form based process can be digitised into our workflow engine with all the complexities hidden from the day to day users resulting in a simple to use, visual and highly efficient workflow.
Kanban
The Gatekeeper Workflow Engine is based on the Kanban approach as we believe visualising work leads to process efficiency and increased collaboration.
What is Kanban?
The term Kanban is Japanese and translates to ‘visual board’. Kanban was originally conceived by Toyota back in the 1940s to improve manufacturing processes. In recent years it has been adopted by many industries as a highly efficient method for managing processes by visualising the work.
A classic Kanban example is a to do list consisting of three columns (phases) to represent the status of your to do list items. Each item on your todo list is a ‘card’ that travels from left (To do) to right (Done) - thereby giving a visual representation of all the work in motion.
Please review this link to wikipedia for more detailed information on the history and value of Kanban.
Workflow terminology
Gatekeeper has fully adopted Kanban terminology ensuring our workflow ‘language’ is universal to anyone familiar with Kanban.
There are only three key Kanban terms to learn and conceptualise:
- Board - the visual representation of the workflow process
- Phase - the stages that Cards (work units) travel through to be processed
- Card - the work unit e.g. a Contract Approval Request
For further information, please read our Kanban blog article and if you would like to discuss the details of your business process with us, please speak with your Customer Success Manager.