In our office we typically have this highly in-efficient workflow:
User A writes a technical report with recommendations
There are between 4-5 people that must sign this document for it to be released
Option 1: User A then hunts down each approver and gets their signature which he later scans and submits. The end result being either a PDF document that is no longer electronic or a lengthy process of splicing in the signed page to a digital copy.
Option 2: User A wishes to perform the same task digitally. He emails the document to approver 1 of 5 to sign and an instruction to pass that signed document on to approver 2 of 5 etc until the process is completed. This is a lengthly process which can be completely interrupted by a delay from one of the approvers preventing the next one from signing. Sometimes one of the approvers hasn't setup electronic signatures and so prints, signs & scans thereby defeating the entire point.
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There are many online services that fix this [e.g. PandaDoc]. You upload a document with the list of approvers and they can sign/approve it online with a digital signature in any order at any time.
I would like to implement such a system, however, since our work is highly confidential the solution must be deployable in a LAN environment on our own servers - I would really like to avoid writing this software myself.