University of Wollongong
Research Online
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Towards an Integrated Model of Enterprise
Systems
Grace A. Kennedy
University of Wollongong,6&(*094;*)9&9
C E. Siemieniuch
Loughborough University
M A. Sinclair
Loughborough University
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Towards an Integrated Model of Enterprise Systems
Abstract
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Keywords
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Disciplines
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Publication Details
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Towards an Integrated Model of Enterprise Systems
G.A.L. Kennedy, C.E. Siemieniuch and M.A. Sinclair
Loughborough University
Systems Engineering Innovation Centre (SEIC), Holywell Park, Loughborough University,
Ashby Road, Loughborough, Leicestershire. LE11 3TU. UK
Corresponding author: G.A.L.Kennedy@lboro.ac.uk
Copyright © 2007 by G.A.L. Kennedy. Published and used by INCOSE with permission.
Abstract. An enterprise system consists of a number of components or building blocks. It
is common to use views or models of the enterprise that contain a selection of these
components (dependent on the intended usage of the model). The premise is that if these
views are considered systems in their own right then the total enterprise system is actually a
system-of-systems. Difficulty arises however when the boundaries between the systems
overlap - it is therefore necessary to have an integrated model of the total enterprise that can
cope with these overlaps and hence interactions between the systems. Within this paper there
will be two main areas of work described; firstly the development of models/tools of “soft”
enterprise characteristics; and secondly how these characteristics may be included in an
integrated model of an enterprise system. Case studies of UK organisations (primarily within
the defence industry) were undertaken to provide context to the results.
Introduction
The Problem/Background. Vernadat defines the term enterprise as a socio-economic
organisation created to produce products or procure services and to make a profit. He goes
on to explain that enterprise modelling is the process of building models of the whole or parts
of an enterprise from knowledge about the enterprise, previous models, and/or reference
models as well as domain ontologies and model representation languages (Vernadat 1996).
Organisational design theory emerged in the early 1950s (Katz 1970). The theory behind
organisational behaviour has had to adapt and extend as organisations and their products
have become more complex and presented more emergent problems – for example take the
boom in information technology and distributed organisations. Enterprise modelling has
been used to understand and analyse organisations. Much work has occurred in the last ten
years into providing a standard framework for enterprise modelling in order to provide
interoperability between organisations (Chen & Vernadat 2004).
It is heard in the news that companies are dynamically restructuring in order to improve their
organisational performance in terms of time, cost and quality. There are often problems with
this restructuring which result in money and time being wasted as well as loss of
motivation/morale of employees due to these changes. Possible explanations could be:
• The theory being used only worked on previous configurations of the organisation
• The theory used is not contextual or applicable to their current enterprise situation
• The process by which change is implemented may not have been considered fully
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• Many analysts of organisations do not consider the total enterprise as a system (e.g.
they try to improve one part but do not consider the impact on other parts of the
system)
It is this last point that has driven a project at Loughborough University. The Virtual
Organisational Rig for Testing and Investigating Company Structures (VORTICS) project
lasted 30 months and was completed in late 2006. VORTICS was set up as a feasibility
study to assess whether an integrated software rig for testing organisations could be
developed and specified.. The objectives of the project were to:
i. capture the requirements for enterprise modelling (EM)
ii. undertake a literature review into the current capabilities of EM
iii. perform a gap analysis between the two former points
iv. develop and refine models and tools to cover these gaps
v. integrate new and traditional models
vi. develop a specification for the VORTICS
It is objectives iv and v that will be covered in more detail in this paper. New models and
tools were developed for a set of “soft” or human aspects of the enterprise. The relationships
between components of these models and more traditional forms of enterprise modelling
were identified to create the integrated enterprise system model.
Section Breakdown/Structure. The first section of this paper introduces the views/models
within enterprises and the enterprise as a systems-of-systems. The second section provides
an overview of the gaps within enterprise modelling in terms of “soft” or human aspects and
the tools/models Loughborough University have developed in answer to these needs. The
third section introduces an integrated model of the enterprise system including both the
traditional forms of enterprise modelling and the models described in the previous section.
The final section concludes the paper and discusses the usefulness of the integrated model.
The Enterprise as a System-of-Systems
The Generic Enterprise Reference Architecture (GERA) within the methodology of the same
name (GERAM) describes a framework for different aspects of modelling an enterprise. It
does not specify the actual models that are required but provides an empty shell to show what
can be modelled. GERAM was standardized as Annex A of ISO15704 (IFIP/IFAC 2000).
Figure 1 shows the GERA cube.
As with most enterprise architectures, it is not essential for every cube within the GERA
framework to be populated for enterprise modelling. A subset of cubes should be selected
that best gives the information required to solve the enterprise problem/issue being
addressed.
There are 3 axes on the GERA cube;
1. Views - GERA specifies that there are four views within an enterprise. The
functional view (covers processes), the information view (mainly information flows
and supporting infrastructure), the organisational view (traditionally this is the
domain of organisational charts), and the resource view (human and technological
resource management).
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2. Lifecycle – The model of a view of an enterprise will differ depending on the stage in
the development lifecycle the enterprise system has reached.
3. Instantiation – There are different levels of genericity that a model can be presented
in. Particular models only apply to a specific organisation, partial models apply to
similar scenarios (e.g. models of organisations in the same domain or with similar
goals), and generic models can be applied and tailored to any organisation.
Figure 1. Generic Enterprise Reference Architecture (GERA)
An enterprise system consists of a number of components or building blocks. It is common
to use views or models of the enterprise that contain a selection of these components
(dependent on the intended usage of the model). The premise is that if these views are
considered systems in their own right then the total enterprise system is actually a system-of-
systems. Using the four GERA views a number of components of the enterprise can be
grouped. Figure 2 shows a visualisation of the enterprise system-of-systems, it is not totally
exhaustive in terms of the components or links identified but seeks to illustrate that the
systems are not totally independent rather that there are links between some of the
components, resulting in a closely coupled system. The block arrow lines show where a
component may actually be the same component, dotted arrow lines show a relationship
between components.
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