Showing papers in "Enterprise Information Systems in 2010"
TL;DR: This article proposes the principle of design of resilient systems, and outlines how these design principles can be applied to the enterprise information system to make it more resilient.
Abstract: Resilience engineering is an emerging discipline. In this article, we discuss the concept of resilience and resilience engineering in light of its distinct identity. We propose the principle of design of resilient systems. Then, we outline how these design principles can be applied to the enterprise information system to make it more resilient. This leads to a proposed architecture of resilient enterprise information systems.
211 citations
TL;DR: The proposed framework is based on the expanded application of two primary enablers of enterprise resilience: the capability of an enterprise to connect systems, people, processes and information in a way that allows enterprise to become more connected and responsive to the dynamics of its environment, stakeholders and competitors.
Abstract: This article proposes a framework for investigation into 'extended enterprise resilience' based on the key attributes of enterprise resilience in the context of extended enterprises. Such attributes, namely agility, flexibility, adaptability and connectivity, are frequently defined as supporting attributes of enterprise resilience, but the issue is how they can be more effectively applied to extended enterprises. The role of information technology in assisting connectivity and collaboration is frequently recognised as contributing to resilience on all levels, and will likewise be employed on the level of extended enterprise systems. The proposed framework is based on the expanded application of two primary enablers of enterprise resilience: (i) the capability of an enterprise to connect systems, people, processes and information in a way that allows enterprise to become more connected and responsive to the dynamics of its environment, stakeholders and competitors; (ii) the alignment of information technology with business goals. The former requires inter-and intra-level interoperability and integration within the extended enterprises, and the latter requires modelling of the underlying technology infrastructure and creation of a consolidated view of, and access to, all available resources in the extended enterprises that can be attained by well-defined enterprise architecture.
207 citations
TL;DR: The implementation of ERP enables the firm to reduce the transaction costs of the business and improve its productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability.
Abstract: Productivity is generally considered to be the efficient utilisation of organisational resources and is measured in terms of the efficiency of a worker, company or nation. Focusing on efficiency alone, however, can be harmful to the organisation's long-term success and competitiveness. The full benefits of productivity improvement measures are realised when productivity is examined from two perspectives: operational efficiency (output/input) of an individual worker or a business unit as well as performance (effectiveness) with regard to end user or customer satisfaction. Over the years, corporations have adopted new technology to integrate business activities in order to achieve both effectiveness and efficiency in their operations. In recent years, many firms have invested in enterprise resource planning (ERP) in order to integrate all business activities into a uniform system. The implementation of ERP enables the firm to reduce the transaction costs of the business and improve its productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability.
141 citations
TL;DR: This survey aims to provide a disambiguation of the term, as it is understood in ubiquitous computing, and a critical evaluation of existing software adaptation approaches.
Abstract: Driven by the vast proliferation of mobile devices and ubiquitous computing, dynamic software adaptation is becoming one of the most common terms in Software Engineering and Computer Science in general. After the evolution in autonomic and ubiquitous computing, we will soon expect devices to understand our changing needs and react to them as transparently as possible. Software adaptation is not a new term though; it has been extensively researched in several domains and in numerous forms. This has resulted in several interpretations of adaptation. This survey aims to provide a disambiguation of the term, as it is understood in ubiquitous computing, and a critical evaluation of existing software adaptation approaches. In particular, we focus on existing solutions that enable dynamic software modifications that happen on resource constrained devices, deployed in mobile and ubiquitous computing environments.
124 citations
TL;DR: A measure for resilience in the context of enterprise information systems or service systems in a more general sense based on the recovery ability of the system is presented, which departs from the existing approaches in literature and presents a unique contribution.
Abstract: In this article, we present a measure for resilience in the context of enterprise information systems or service systems in a more general sense. Resilience of the system is a property of the system, which focuses on the recovery ability of the system after a partial damage of the system. Enterprise information systems such as enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management, manufacturing execution system, etc. play a critical role in the daily operation of modern enterprises by timely and sustainable delivery of information. Therefore, resilience is especially important for the enterprise information systems. The proposed measure for resilience is based on the recovery ability of the system, which departs from the existing approaches in literature and presents a unique contribution. An example is given to illustrate how the proposed measure works.
114 citations
TL;DR: The study shows that a M-Grid-based VE operation platform can make a semi-automated process possible for a VE, and the proposed MGVEOP is efficient and agile.
Abstract: Virtual enterprises (VEs) have become one of main types of organisations in the manufacturing sector through which the consortium companies organise their manufacturing activities. To be competitive, a VE relies on the complementary core competences among members through resource sharing and agile manufacturing capacity. Manufacturing grid (M-Grid) is a platform in which the production resources can be shared. In this article, an M-Grid-based VE operation platform (MGVEOP) is presented as it enables the sharing of production resources among geographically distributed enterprises. The performance management system of the MGVEOP is based on the balanced scorecard and has the capacity of self-learning. The study shows that a MGVEOP can make a semi-automated process possible for a VE, and the proposed MGVEOP is efficient and agile.
90 citations
TL;DR: A QoS model for QoS aware and business driven web service publishing and selection is defined and a web service selection algorithm is presented, which ranks the functionally similar web services based on the degree of satisfaction of the requester's QoS requirements and preferences.
Abstract: A web service is an interface of the software component that can be accessed by standard Internet protocols. The web service technology enables an application to application communication and interoperability. The increasing number of web service providers throughout the globe have produced numerous web services providing the same or similar functionality. This necessitates the use of tools and techniques to search the suitable services available over the Web. UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) is the first initiative to find the suitable web services based on the requester's functional demands. However, the requester's requirements may also include non-functional aspects like quality of service (QoS). In this paper, the authors define a QoS model for QoS aware and business driven web service publishing and selection. The authors propose a QoS requirement format for the requesters, to specify their complex demands on QoS for the web service selection. The authors define a tree structure called quality constraint tree (QCT) to represent the requester's variety of requirements on QoS properties having varied preferences. The paper proposes a QoS broker based architecture for web service selection, which facilitates the requesters to specify their QoS requirements to select qualitatively optimal web service. A web service selection algorithm is presented, which ranks the functionally similar web services based on the degree of satisfaction of the requester's QoS requirements and preferences. The paper defines web service provider qualities to distinguish qualitatively competitive web services. The paper also presents the modelling and selection mechanism for the requester's alternative constraints defined on the QoS. The authors implement the QoS broker based system to prove the correctness of the proposed web service selection mechanism.
75 citations
TL;DR: The empirical findings show that BPR companies outperformed non-BPR companies, not only on information processing, technology applications, organisational structure, and co-ordination, but also on all of the major logistics operations.
Abstract: As business process re-engineering (BPR) is an important foundation to ensure the success of enterprise systems, this study would like to investigate the relationships among BPR implementation, BPR success factors, and business performance for logistics companies. Our empirical findings show that BPR companies outperformed non-BPR companies, not only on information processing, technology applications, organisational structure, and co-ordination, but also on all of the major logistics operations. Comparing the different perceptions of the success factors for BPR, non-BPR companies place greater emphasis on the importance of employee involvement while BPR companies are more concerned about the influence of risk management. Our findings also suggest that management attitude towards BPR success factors could affect performance with regard to technology applications and logistics operations. Logistics companies which have not yet implemented the BPR approach could refer to our findings to evaluate the advantages of such an undertaking and to take care of those BPR success factors affecting performance before conducting BPR projects.
60 citations
TL;DR: This paper discusses the relationships between resilience and other architectural properties such as scalability, reliability, and consistency, and presents seven architectural constraints for resilience.
Abstract: Resilience has become a new nonfunctional requirement for information systems. Many design decisions have to be made at the architectural level in order to deliver an information system with the resilience property. This paper discusses the relationships between resilience and other architectural properties such as scalability, reliability, and consistency. A corollary is derived from the CAP theorem, and states that it is impossible for a system to have all three properties of consistency, resilience and partition-tolerance. We present seven architectural constraints for resilience. The constraints are elicited from good architectural practices for developing reliable and fault-tolerant systems and the state-of-the-art technologies in distributed computing. These constraints provide a comprehensive reference for architectural design towards resilience.
54 citations
TL;DR: This work presents a set of propositions related to enterprise resource planning (ERP) development, reflections on competitive advantage and the different roles that stakeholders play in the value-chain, with the goal of building a foundation for future research on ERPs.
Abstract: Using the resource-based view, we present a set of propositions related to enterprise resource planning (ERP) development, reflections on competitive advantage and the different roles that stakeholders play in the value-chain. This has the goal of building a foundation for future research on ERPs and how stakeholders' desire to achieve competitive advantage influence ERP development, especially when it comes to development of a more standardised or pre-customised ERP system. The propositions also act as a foundation for increasing our knowledge concerning the difficulty in developing improved ERP systems.
49 citations
TL;DR: A layered framework for integrating pharmacogenomics data in a service-oriented approach using the mashup technology is proposed, which separates the integration concerns from three perspectives including data, process and Web-based user interface.
Abstract: Data are central to scientific research and practices. The advance of experiment methods and information retrieval technologies leads to explosive growth of scientific data and databases. However, due to the heterogeneous problems in data formats, structures and semantics, it is hard to integrate the diversified data that grow explosively and analyse them comprehensively. As more and more public databases are accessible through standard protocols like programmable interfaces and Web portals, Web-based data integration becomes a major trend to manage and synthesise data that are stored in distributed locations. Mashup, a Web 2.0 technique, presents a new way to compose content and software from multiple resources. The paper proposes a layered framework for integrating pharmacogenomics data in a service-oriented approach using the mashup technology. The framework separates the integration concerns from three perspectives including data, process and Web-based user interface. Each layer encapsulates the heterogeneous issues of one aspect. To facilitate the mapping and convergence of data, the ontology mechanism is introduced to provide consistent conceptual models across different databases and experiment platforms. To support user-interactive and iterative service orchestration, a context model is defined to capture information of users, tasks and services, which can be used for service selection and recommendation during a dynamic service composition process. A prototype system is implemented and cases studies are presented to illustrate the promising capabilities of the proposed approach.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a formal definition of an e-commerce transaction network and use agent-based modeling to simulate ecommerce transaction networks, and derive one-mode networks from the transaction network using degree and betweenness centrality.
Abstract: We provide a formal definition of an e-commerce transaction network. Agent-based modelling is used to simulate e-commerce transaction networks. For real-world analysis, we studied the open application programming interfaces (APIs) from eBay and Taobao e-commerce websites and captured real transaction data. Pajek is used to visualise the agent relationships in the transaction network. We derived one-mode networks from the transaction network and analysed them using degree and betweenness centrality. Integrating multi-agent modelling, open APIs and social network analysis, we propose a new way to study large-scale e-commerce systems.
TL;DR: The proposed method for query expansion using hypernym/hyponymy and synonym relations in WordNet and WordNet semantic similarity to assign terms in the same query into different groups with respect to their semantic similarities can improve the query performance dramatically.
Abstract: In this article, we propose a method for business information query expansions. In our approach, hypernym/hyponymy and synonym relations in WordNet are used as the basic expansion rules. Then we use WordNet Lexical Chains and WordNet semantic similarity to assign terms in the same query into different groups with respect to their semantic similarities. For each group, we expand the highest terms in the WordNet hierarchies with hypernym and synonym, the lowest terms with hyponym and synonym and all other terms with only synonym. In this way, the contradictory caused by full expansion can be well controlled. Furthermore, we use collection-related term semantic network to further improve the expansion performance. And our experiment reveals that our solution for query expansion can improve the query performance dramatically.
TL;DR: Through model simulations a variety of dynamic insights were revealed that could assist ERP project managers, and major findings from the simulation show that upfront investments in mentoring and system exposure translate to long-term cost savings.
Abstract: Organisations often make implementation decisions with little consideration for the maintenance phase of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, resulting in significant recurring maintenance costs. Poor cost estimations are likely related to the lack of an appropriate framework for enterprise-wide pre-packaged software maintenance, which requires an ongoing relationship with the software vendor (Markus, M.L., Tanis, C., and Fenema, P.C., 2000. Multisite ERP implementation. CACM, 43 (4), 42-46). The end result is that critical project decisions are made with little empirical data, resulting in substantial long-term cost impacts. The product of this research is a formal dynamic simulation model that enables theory testing, scenario exploration and policy analysis. The simulation model ERPMAINT1 was developed by combining and extending existing frameworks in several research domains, and by incorporating quantitative and qualitative case study data. The ERPMAINT1 model evaluates tradeoffs between different ERP project management decisions and their impact on post-implementation total cost of ownership (TCO). Through model simulations a variety of dynamic insights were revealed that could assist ERP project managers. Major findings from the simulation show that upfront investments in mentoring and system exposure translate to long-term cost savings. The findings also indicate that in addition to customisations, add-ons have a significant impact on TCO.
TL;DR: A business process language called DT4BP is presented, which has been designed to drive the modelling of dependable, collaborative and time-constrained business processes.
Abstract: The effectiveness of the information system that a particular organisation uses for running its business depends largely on the success in modelling such business. This is due to the fact that the business model defines the requirements of the information system that will support the running of the business. Nowadays, there exist many business process development methods that are supported by modelling notations and tools. Unfortunately, these methods are not capable of modelling jointly complex collaborations, time constraints and to offer means to support resilient business process engineering. This article presents a business process language called DT4BP, which has been designed to drive the modelling of dependable, collaborative and time-constrained business processes. The presentation of DT4BP is made to target end users, which are business processes modellers.
TL;DR: The people-centred factors of ‘project team competence’, ‘rewards’ and ‘communication and change’ were found to predict significantly the ERP implementation project success.
Abstract: Extant literature suggests people-centred factors as one of the major areas influencing enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation project success. Yet, to date, few empirical studies attempted to validate the link between people-centred factors and ERP implementation project success. The purpose of this study is to empirically identify people-centred factors that are critical to ERP implementation projects in Sri Lanka. The study develops and empirically validates a framework for people-centred factors that influence the success of ERP implementation projects. Survey research methodology was used and collected data from 74 ERP implementation projects in Sri Lanka. The people-centred factors of 'project team competence', 'rewards' and 'communication and change' were found to predict significantly the ERP implementation project success.
TL;DR: This article applies effort estimation based on social choice by substituting the voters by project attributes, and describes the estimation process using a data set of 39 projects, and compares the results to other approaches proposed in the literature.
Abstract: ERP implementation projects have received enormous attention in the last years, due to their importance for organisations, as well as the costs and risks involved. The estimation of effort and costs associated with new projects therefore is an important topic. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of models that can cope with the special characteristics of these projects. As the main focus lies in adapting and customising a complex system, and even changing the organisation, traditional models like COCOMO can not easily be applied. In this article, we will apply effort estimation based on social choice in this context. Social choice deals with aggregating the preferences of a number of voters into a collective preference, and we will apply this idea by substituting the voters by project attributes. Therefore, instead of supplying numeric values for various project attributes, a new project only needs to be placed into rankings per attribute, necessitating only ordinal values, and the resulting aggregate ranking can be used to derive an estimation. We will describe the estimation process using a data set of 39 projects, and compare the results to other approaches proposed in the literature.
TL;DR: The topology optimisation theory and methods of the network control system based on switched Ethernet in an industrial context and an improved arena algorithm is proposed for the construction of the non-dominated set of the population.
Abstract: Computer networks have been very popular in enterprise applications. However, optimisation of network designs that allows networks to be used more efficiently in industrial environment and enterprise applications remains an interesting research topic. This article mainly discusses the topology optimisation theory and methods of the network control system based on switched Ethernet in an industrial context. Factors that affect the real-time performance of the industrial control network are presented in detail, and optimisation criteria with their internal relations are analysed. After the definition of performance parameters, the normalised indices for the evaluation of the topology optimisation are proposed. The topology optimisation problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimisation problem and the evolutionary algorithm is applied to solve it. Special communication characteristics of the industrial control network are considered in the optimisation process. In respect to the evolutionary algorithm design, an improved arena algorithm is proposed for the construction of the non-dominated set of the population. In addition, for the evaluation of individuals, the integrated use of the dominative relation method and the objective function combination method, for reducing the computational cost of the algorithm, are given. Simulation tests show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is preferable and superior compared to other algorithms. The final solution greatly improves the following indices: traffic localisation, traffic balance and utilisation rate balance of switches. In addition, a new performance index with its estimation process is proposed.
TL;DR: This paper provides two approaches to scheduling and describes an implementation of a scheduler which shows the feasibility of this approach and is integrated with an autonomic manager described in earlier papers.
Abstract: Managing large IT environments is expensive and labour intensive. Maintaining and upgrading with minimal disruption and administrative support has always been a challenging task for system administrators. One challenge faced by IT administrators is arriving at schedules for applying one or more change requests to one of the system components. Most of the time, the impact analysis of the proposed changes is done by humans and is often laborious and error-prone. Although this methodology might be suitable to handle changes that are planned way ahead in time, it is completely inappropriate for changes that need to be done sooner. In addition, such manual handling does not scale well with the size of the IT infrastructure. In this article, the focus is on the problem of scheduling change requests in the presence of organisational policies governing the use of its resources. The authors propose two approaches for change management scheduling and present the implementation details of two prototypes that prove the feasibility of the proposed approaches. Their implementation is integrated with an autonomic manager which they had described in their earlier work.