Method and apparatus for process control by using natural language processing (NLP) technology

• US 6,138,088 A
• Filed: 12/22/1997
• Issued: 10/24/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nuance Communications, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Goeser, Sebastian
• Primary Examiner(s): Thomas, Joseph
• Application Number:
  US08/995,442
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: 704/1, 704/9, 704/10, 705/1, 705/7, 705/8, 705/9, 705/10, 705/11, 707/104, 707/100, 706/925
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass

Abstract

Natural language processing is used in a method and apparatus for the computer-backed control of business processes and process sequences. The method involves the automatic checking of at least one of the conditions of an activity of the business process using a method of natural language processing. Control of the process conditions of activities which currently checked by humans can be checked automatically.

Claims

1. A method for control of documents of a business process using a computer system, in which the business process has activities, and the activities have conditions, characterized by

automatic checking of a document for at least one of the conditions using a method of natural language processing in which:

the automatic checking is performed automatically using the computer system by allocation of the document to a description,

the document has at least one word, which exists in the computer system in digital form,

functional descriptions of linguistic information in the form of directed acyclic graphs are stored in the computer system;

the directed acyclic graphs belonging to the descriptions are applied to the documents;

the acyclic graph relating to the document are initiated by means of a parsing process; and

the functional description contains at least one address to which the documents are forwarded.

2. The method of claim 1 in which

the document is a letter received by a company;

and

the descriptions are allocated to various specialist areas of the company.

3. The method as in one of claim 2, which

automatic checking takes the form of an independent activity within the control of the business process.

4. The method of claim 3, in which

the computer system for control of the business process contains an IBM Flowmark workflow management system.

5. A computerized method of controlling the flow of documents through a business process comprising:

a) providing the documents in digital form to a computer system containing a model of a business process to be controlled by the computer system;

b) textmining the digitized documents using natural language processing to extract content from the digitized documents based on information stored in a workflow administrator of the business process; and

c) automatically comparing specialist descriptions in the form of directed acyclic graphs of a plurality of work areas involved in the business process to the extracted content of the digitized documents using a parsing process to direct the documents to at least one specific work area out of said plurality and using the extracted contents for performing functions called for by the modeled business process at the at least one specific work area.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the modeled business process is a model for handling of letters received by a company and the specialist descriptions are of different specialist areas of the company involved in the handling of business areas.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the specialist areas of the company include customer service and bookkeeping areas of the company.

8. The method of claim 7 including the steps of identifying a product that is ordered from the extracted content and directing the order to the correct customer service area to fill the order.

9. The method of claim 5 including the step of using the extracted content for starting the at least one specific work area.

10. A software program on a computer usable medium providing a computerized method of controlling the flow of documents through a business process comprising:

a) modeling software containing a model of a business process to be controlled by the computer system;

b) workflow administration software defining what information is to be extracted from the document;

c) textmining software to analyze digitized documents using natural language processing to extract content from the digitized documents called for by the workflow administrator;

d) specialist software specifying specialist descriptions in the form of directed acyclic graphs to compare with the extracted content in a parsing process to direct the document to at least one of a plurality of different specific work areas involved in the business process;

e) operative software for using the extracted content in the performing functions at the at least one of the different specific work areas called for by the modeled business process.

11. The program of claim 10 wherein the modeling software for the business process is a model for handling of letters received by a company and the specialist descriptions in the specialist hardware are of different specialist areas of the company involved in handling those letters.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the specialist areas in the specialist software include customer service and bookkeeping areas of the business process.

13. The software of claim 11 including product identification software for using the extracted content of a letter to identify a product that is ordered by the letter and to direct the order to the correct customer service area to fill the order.

14. A computer system for controlling the flow of documents through a business process comprising:

a) means for providing the documents in digital form to a computer system containing a model of a business process to be controlled by the computer system;

b) workflow administration means for defining what information is to be extracted from the documents;

c) textmining means for analyzing the digitized documents using natural language processing to extract content from the digitized documents called for by the workflow administration means;

d) specialist means for specifying specialist descriptions in the form of directed acyclic graphs to automatically compare with the extracted content using a parsing process to direct the document to at least one of a plurality of different specific work areas involved in the business process;

e) operative means for performing functions called for by the modeled business process at the at least one of the plurality of different specific work areas using information extracted from the documents.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the business process is a model for the handling of letters received by a company and the specialist descriptions are of different specialist areas of the company.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the specialist areas of the company include customer service and bookkeeping areas of the business.