The individual tender specifications of the pilot publishers served as a basis for rethinking the optimisation of their processes using a WFMS concept. The requirements identified during the needs assessment formed the basis for the present findings. The evaluation of the interviews revealed that publishers are increasingly tending to expand existing infrastructures rather than conducting time-consuming tests and evaluations of marketable systems in a market analysis. The aim was therefore to link the multitude of services currently used in publishing houses rather than replacing them with a new, monolithic system. The needs assessment of the current status of the tools used revealed that a large number of them are used in a wide variety of system categories. 

In a series of intensive discussions, a concept was developed that aims to integrate existing services and workflow components using middleware that is yet to be developed. Based on examples from the pilot publishers Universitätsverlag Potsdam and BerlinUP, the Open Journal Systems (OJS) publication system and the ‘WeKan’ (Kanban board) dashboard programme were selected as the basic systems. In a feasibility study, these were connected via a technical interface using middleware to enable bidirectional data exchange. The result of the research project is the development of a demonstrator, whose source code and associated documentation have been made publicly available on the Github platform.

The demonstrator illustrates the concept of an ideal WFMS in a simplified form. The schematic overview shows that the model can be expanded and supplemented. Middleware is used to link data sources such as OMP, OJS or a!quadrat with process control programmes (dashboards, resource management, document generation, etc.). This enables the automated display and exchange of information. For example, production management is automatically informed as soon as a journal has been submitted to OJS, editing has been completed or tasks are overdue.