Automation can be traced back to the early days of artificial intelligence, when researchers tried to describe complex systems in the simplest terms, focusing on the use of rules. Like the first experimental computers that tried to simulate chess games, these systems work in the mode of state machines. A bit like the rules of the game, the organization explicitly or implicitly defines the process according to key "rules", and these rules suggest what decisions or changes to make at some point in the process-or what authorization to request. Once called inference engine, similar software systems have developed into business rule engines or business rule management systems. The complexity of creating and maintaining business rules often becomes an obstacle to popularizing these systems.

These systems assume the role of BPM tools similar to modeling. (Admittedly, many users will regard modeling-centric BPM as a unique category. At first, the modeling-centered method tends to work from top to bottom, that is, to describe an organization or improve it with special symbols in the model. Some tool vendors have completed their support for executable models-their models can generate or help form usable business logic code. Compared with other types of BPM systems introduced here, the scale of business rule engine in pure BPM system will become larger. Throughout the 1990s, the method of integrating operational data from different systems was improved in the form of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Although these are usually fixed one-to-one integrations, message queuing (an application integration) has become particularly popular. At the same time, the implicit business processes are expressed as organized queues, such as clearing bank checks or executing inventory orders, which makes the integrated server have the flavor of workflow-oriented BPM to a great extent. Today, many architects tend to regard data integration as a business process problem. Similarly, some architects will expect to integrate process automation according to B2B or EDI.