Showing papers on "Enterprise systems engineering published in 2006"

Enterprise agility and the enabling role of information technology

Abstract: In turbulent environments, enterprise agility, that is, the ability of firms to sense environmental change and respond readily, is an important determinant of firm success. We define and deconstruct enterprise agility, delineate enterprise agility from similar concepts in the business research literature, explore the underlying capabilities that support enterprise agility, explicate the enabling role of information technology (IT) and digital options, and propose a method for measuring enterprise agility. The concepts in this paper are offered as foundational building blocks for the overall research program on enterprise agility and the enabling role of IT.

Enterprise Ontology: Theory and Methodology

Abstract: If one thing catches the eye in almost all literature about (re)designing or (re)engineering of enterprises, it is the lack of a well-founded theory about their construction and operation. Often even the most basic notions like "action" or "process" are not precisely defined. Next, in order to master the diversity and the complexity of contemporary enterprises, theories are needed that separate the stable essence of an enterprise from the variable way in which it is realized and implemented. Such a theory and a matching methodology, which has passed the test of practical experience, constitute the contents of this book. The enterprise ontology, as developed by Dietz, is the starting point for profoundly understanding the organization of an enterprise and subsequently for analyzing, (re)designing, and (re)engineering it. The approach covers numerous issues in an integrated way: business processes, in- and outsourcing, information systems, management control, staffing etc. Researchers and students in enterprise engineering or related fields will discover in this book a revolutionary new way of thinking about business and organization. In addition, it provides managers, business analysts, and enterprise information system designers for the first time with a solid and integrated insight into their daily work.

Enterprise information mashups: integrating information, simply

Abstract: There is a fundamental transformation that is taking place on the web around information composition through mashups. We first describe this transformation and then assert that this will also affect enterprise architectures. Currently the state-of-the-art in enterprises around information composition is federation and other integration technologies. These scale well, and are well worth the upfront investment for enterprise class, long-lived applications. However, there are many information composition tasks that are not currently well served by these architectures. The needs of Situational Applications (i.e. applications that come together for solving some immediate business problems) are one such set of tasks. Augmenting structured data with unstructured information is another such task. Our hypothesis is that a new class of integration technologies will emerge to serve these tasks, and we call it an enterprise information mashup fabric. In the talk, we discuss the information management primitives that are needed for this fabric, the various options that exist for implementation, and pose several, currently unanswered, research questions.

A comparison of enterprise architecture frameworks

Abstract: An Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) maps all of the software development processes within the enterprise and how they relate and interact to fulfill the enterprise’s mission. It provides organizations with the ability to understand and analyze weaknesses or inconsistencies to be identified and addressed. There are a number of already established EAF in use today; some of these frameworks were developed for very specific areas, whereas others have broader functionality. This study provides a comparison of several frameworks that can then be used for guidance in the selection of an EAF that meets the needed criteria.

Enterprise transformation

Abstract: Fundamental enterprise changes begin by looking at the challenges from technical, behavioral, and social perspectives.

Systemic Management of Architectural Decisions in Enterprise Architecture Planning. Four Dimensions and Three Abstraction Levels

Abstract: This paper presents a process model for the management of architectural decisions in enterprise architecture planning. First, decisions are made at the enterprise level, with strategic business considerations on the enterprise information, systems and technology strategy and governance issues. The next step is to define the domains, to then go on with domain architecture decisions. At the systems level, the enterprise and domain architecture decisions are collected and converted into architecture descriptions accurate in precision, form and detail to be given as input to the information systems development process, following the architectural planning. The model is derived from previous work and empirical findings in three large organizations, where the enterprise architecture and enterprise systems have been developed. This case study contributes with considerations on the domains, their definition, and produces refinements to an enterprise architecture process model presented before. For the development of the model, the "living system" paradigm is followed.

Integrating knowledge management and ERP in enterprise information systems

Abstract: Knowledge is considered as an enterprise's invisible assets. Surviving in today's highly competitive and ever expanding global economy requires efficiently managing corporate knowledge. Increasing requirements for extended enterprises have stimulated the integration of knowledge management (KM) function into ERP systems for knowledge asset management. So far enterprise information systems such as ERP systems are developed and implemented for mainly managing physical assets of an enterprise since 1990s. Due to the fact that both types of assets need to be properly managed, the integration of KM and ERP becomes a strategic initiative for providing competitive advantages to enterprises. This paper discusses how to deploy KM and ERP concurrently in the framework of enterprise information systems, with a discussion of the interaction of KM and ERP systems in systems perspectives. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Vertical integration of enterprise industrial systems utilizing web services

Abstract: The need for interoperability is prominent in the industrial enterprise environment. Different applications and systems that cover the overall range of the industrial infrastructure from the field to the enterprise level need to interoperate. This quest is driven by the enterprise need for greater flexibility and for the wider possible integration of the enterprise systems. This paper presents a distributed system architecture that utilizes dominant state-of-the-art standard technologies, such as workflows, ontologies, and web services, in order to address the above quest in an efficient way.

The false promise of technological determinism: the case of enterprise resource planning systems

Abstract: According to software vendors and consultants, Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) transform the nature, structure and management of work regardless of organisational context. This paper contests this technologically deterministic view of organisational change by demonstrating the role that discourse plays in the social construction of ERPs.

Policy‐Level Specifications in REA Enterprise Information Systems

Abstract: The Resource‐Event‐Agent (REA) enterprise model is a widely accepted framework for the design of the accountability infrastructure of enterprise information systems. Policy‐level specifications define constraints and guidelines under which an enterprise operates, and they are an extension to the REA enterprise model, adding the “what should, could, or must be” to the “what is.” This paper aims both at comprehensive understanding of policy‐level definitions as part of REA enterprise systems and at understanding of the semantic constructs that enable such definitions. We first explore two distinctive semantic abstractions essential to policy‐level specifications: typification and grouping. The typification abstraction links instances of an object class to concepts for which they are concrete realizations, while the grouping abstraction aggregates objects into collections. We next present a number of patterns for the semantic modeling of policies. Following, we look at policy‐level applications for REA enter...

Providing Customer Relationship Management Application as Enterprise Services

Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having customer relationship management functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.

A Complex Adaptive System Perspective of Enterprise Architecture in Electronic Government

Abstract: Within the public sector, the deployment of enterprise architecture is often an attempt to address the decentralization/centralization relationships to improve the links between the central and the local governments. The underlying aim is to provide a better structure to manage the diverse, independent and local IT-related projects and development activities. In this paper we propose a novel approach to analyzing and understanding the requirements and limitations for enterprise architectures in government. We use the perspective of a complex adaptive system as a metaphor to examine 11 e-government projects with each involved the development of enterprise architecture in the Netherlands (1980s - 2004). Through analyzing the key interaction points between the central and the local governments, we identify architectural design principles that will increase inter-organizational jointness and IT implementation success.

Understanding management data systems for enterprise performance management

Abstract: Purpose – Managing enterprise performance is an important, yet a difficult process due to its complexity. The process involves monitoring the strategic focus of an enterprise, whose performance is measured from the analysis of data generated from a wide range of interrelated business activities performed at different levels within the enterprise. This study aims to investigate management data systems technologies in terms of how they are used and the issues that are related to their effective management within the broader context of enterprise performance management (EPM).Design/methodology/approach – A range of recently published research literature on data warehousing, online analytic processing and EPM is reviewed to explore their current state, issues and challenges learned from their practice.Findings – The findings of the study are reported in two parts. The first part discusses the current business practices of these technologies, and the second part identifies and discusses the issues and challeng...

Providing accounting software application as enterprise services

Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having accounting functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.

The 'Grand Challenge' in Informatics: Engineering Software-Intensive Systems

Abstract: The science of information and information processing, informatics comprises many areas and includes principles of computing, storing, communicating, and visualizing information, and formalisms to describe information-processing procedures. The development and production of information-processing systems is based on software support systems such as software tools or product data repositories. Software and systems engineering is thus the key discipline for constructing information-processing systems. In particular, software and systems engineering addresses issues such as requirements engineering, architectural design, implementation, reliability engineering, and long-term maintenance. Developing a methodology for specifying and verifying software-intensive systems poses a grand challenge that a broad stream of research must address

Enterprise Security: A Community of Interest Based Approach.

Abstract: Enterprise networks today carry a range of mission critical communications. A successful worm attack within an enterprise network can be substantially more devastating to most companies than attacks on the larger Internet. In this paper we explore a brownfield approach to hardening an enterprise network against active malware such as worms. The premise of our approach is that if future communication patterns are constrained to historical “normal” communication patterns, then the ability of malware to exploit vulnerabilities in the enterprise can be severely curtailed. We present techniques for automatically deriving individual host profiles that capture historical communication patterns (i.e., community of interest (COI)) of end hosts within an enterprise network. Using traces from a large enterprise network, we investigate how a range of different security policies based on these profiles impact usability (as valid communications may get restricted) and security (how well the policies contain malware). Our evaluations indicate that a simple security policy comprised of our Extended COIbased profile and Relaxed Throttling Discipline can effectively contain worm behavior within an enterprise without significantly impairing normal network operation.

Management and enterprise architecture click: The FAD(E)E framework

Abstract: Enterprises are living things. They constantly need to be (re-)architected in order to achieve the necessary agility, alignment and integration. This paper gives a high-level overview of how companies can go about doing `enterprise architecture' in the context of both the classic (isolated) enterprise and the Extended Enterprise. By discussing the goals that are pursued in an enterprise architecture effort we reveal some basic requirements that can be put on the process of architecting the enterprise. The relationship between managing and architecting the enterprise is discussed and clarified in the FAD(E)E, the Framework for the Architectural Development of the (Extended) Enterprise.

Extended‐enterprise systems' impact on enterprise risk management

Abstract: Purpose – This article aims to focus on raising awareness of the limitations of traditional “enterprise‐centric” views of enterprise risk management that ignore the risks that are inherited from key business and supply chain partners. In essence, enterprise systems implementations have allowed organizations to couple their operations more tightly with other business partners, particularly in the area of supply chain management, and in the process enterprise systems applications are redefining the boundaries of the entity in terms of risk management concerns and the scope of financial audits. Design/methodology/approach – The prior literature that has begun to explore aspects of assessing key risk components in these relationships is reviewed with an eye to highlighting the limitations of what is understood about risk in interorganizational relationships. This analysis of the prior research establishes the basis for the logical formation of a framework for future enterprise risk management research in the area of e‐commerce relationships. Findings – Conclusions focus on the overall framework of risks that should be considered when interorganizational relationships are critical to an enterprise's operations and advocate an “extended‐enterprise” view of enterprise risk management. Research limitations/implications – The framework introduced in this paper provides guidance for future research in the area of interorganizational systems control and risk assessment. Practical implications – The framework further highlights areas of risk that auditors and corporate risk managers should consider in assessing the risk inherited through interorganizational relationships. Originality/value – The paper highlights the need to shift from an enterprise‐centric view of risk management to an extended‐enterprise risk management view.

Electronic enterprise capital marketplace and monitoring apparatus and method

Abstract: An automated and interactive system that facilitates efficient capitalization/liquidation and monitoring of private and publicly-traded enterprises through a network-driven marketplace is disclosed. The system may be comprised of a dynamic process for enterprise characterization (12), a customizable computational engine (42) that utilizes statistical reference information to quantify a multi-factor scoring value for each unique enterprise, a customizable system for investor-users to filter, rank, and screen enterprise prospects (22), a customizable system for monitoring the performance of enterprises (110), an integrated internal system for electronic communication between market participants (140), and an empirical feedback system (50) that provides a dynamic knowledge base (40) of statistical reference information for various computational components of the invention.

Enterprise: Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Concepts, Contexts and Commercialization

Abstract: Part 1: Concepts 1 What is enterprise and where do we find it? 2 What entrepreneurs are like and what they do 3 Innovation and its management 4 Learning, decision-making and leadership Part 2: Contexts 5 The personal enterprise environment 6 The enterprise environment and the entrepreneurial response 7 The social, public and not-for-profit context 8 Multicultural entrepreneurship Part 3: Commercialisation 9 Opportunity identification and solution development 10 Enterprise planning and risk management 11 Getting started: creating the organisation, obtaining resources and reaching break even 12 Enterprise strategies and fast growth

On the relationship of Ontologies and Models

Abstract: As models and ontologies assume an increasingly central role in enterprise systems engineering the question of how they compare and can be used together assumes growing importance. On the one hand, the semantic web community is starting to propose a central role for “ontologies” in software engineering, while on the other hand the software engineering community has over the last few years been enthusiastically embracing “models” as the core artefact in software development. Superficially, however, ontologies and models are very similar, and in fact are sometimes visualized using the same language (e.g. UML). This has given rise to a variety of different interpretations of the roles of the two technologies, and had generated a certain degree of confusion about the relationship between them. So what exactly is the difference between ontologies and models and why are both concepts needed? Are they basically the same thing viewed from different angles or is there some fundamental difference between them beyond the idiosyncrasies of current tools and languages? This paper discusses this question. After considering common informal distinctions between ontologies and models, and analyzing their fundamental definitions, we propose how they might usefully be distinguished in the future.

Teaching with Enterprise Systems

Abstract: With the wide-spread adoption of Enterprise Systems (ES), such as SAP, Oracle, and Peoplesoft, in medium and large-sized organizations, there is increasing demand for students who know how to work with such systems. While the demand for ES developers and integrators has declined, the demand for employees that can help companies achieve benefits from these systems continues to grow. Such employees need skills in decision-making and process design in an integrated, data-rich environment enabled by an ES. This paper provides advice about teaching with enterprise systems at the undergraduate and graduate levels within the IS curriculum and across management and engineering curricula. This advice is provided by five professors from five different schools, California State University at Chico, Louisiana State University, Queensland University of Technology, Bentley College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute that together have many years of experience in teaching with SAP or with the Oracle e-business suite. This paper includes a summary of the experiences at each of these schools, advice based on questions from the audience at an AMCIS 2005 panel, and references to resources that may be helpful to those considering, or already engaged in, teaching with enterprise systems. I. WHY TEACH WITH ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS Enterprise Systems (ES) have become a critical backbone for most companies’ business processes. An ES package includes the internal back office functions, e.g., financials, order and production management, and human resources, which collectively comprised Enterprise Teaching with Enterprise Systems by D. M. Strong, J. Fedorowicz, J. Sager, G. Stewart, and E. Watson Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 17, 2006), 728-755 729 Resource Planning (ERP) systems, as well as newer extended enterprise modules, such as supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM). Companies using such systems depend upon employees with ES experience to help them install, extend, and achieve benefits from these systems. Despite the critical need of companies for ES-savvy workers, students still rarely encounter an ES during their university education. The challenges universities face in integrating an ES into a curriculum and in achieving educational benefits from such implementations differ from those of business organizations, but are no less difficult. This paper started as a panel at the 2005 Americas Conference on Information Systems in Omaha, NE [Strong, Corbitt, Fedorowicz, Stewart, and Watson, 2005]. A starting point for the panel was a special issue of the Journal of Information Systems Education [Antonucci, Corbitt, Stewart, and Harris, 2004]. The goal of the panel was to contribute to the ability of more universities to provide a stimulating ES-based educational environment for students. The panel presented the experiences of those who had integrated Enterprise Systems into their curricula and provided advice to the audience about teaching with enterprise systems at their schools. This paper represents a report of the panel and a list of additional references and resources. The five panelists represent five different schools – California State University at Chico (CSUC), Louisiana State University (LSU), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Bentley College (Bentley), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) – and five different approaches to integrating enterprise systems into a curriculum. The first four schools listed use mySAP ERP and mySAP Business Suite, while WPI uses the Oracle e-business suite. In 1996 CSUC was the first university in the U.S. to receive the SAP R/3 System for use in the classroom. The SAP University Alliance (UA) program in the U.S., leveraging the experiences of the successful program in Germany, was started during the 1996/1997 academic year. In 1997, LSU became a member of the U.S. program, while QUT joined the Australian program. Bentley joined the SAP UA in 1998. WPI joined the Oracle Academic Initiative in 2000. The first purpose of this paper is to present the approaches taken by each of these five schools to illustrate the various options available for integrating enterprise systems into a curriculum. For each school, the paper describes when and why it started with enterprise systems, its initial focus and purpose with any major transitions or changes in focus over the years, the courses with hands-on ES content, what it plans for the future, and major lessons learned. The second purpose of this paper is to provide assistance to schools who are involved in, or are thinking about initiating, the use of enterprise systems in their curricula. The paper presents some of the questions asked by the audience at the AMCIS panel and provides a list of resources in the bibliography. II. FIVE SCHOOLS AND FIVE APPROACHES The panelists used a common format to present their experiences with teaching with enterprise systems and then expanded on each item. A summary is provided in Table 1, followed by a more detailed description for each school. CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT CHICO Motivation and Focus In June of 1996, SAP America selected the California State University Chico (CSUC) College of Business as its first North American partner in the company’s University Alliance Program. Prior to joining the UA, a group of business faculty at CSUC had been working to identify an ERP system that could provide adequate support for curriculum integration efforts. Choosing SAP, the world leader in enterprise software for businesses, and becoming a SAP UA partner was seen as a unique opportunity to provide students with a deeper understanding of how businesses actually operate. In addition, UA membership supported the University’s mission to build a state-of-the-art technological learning environment to provide students with high-demand knowledge and skills, and prepare them for success in the new information economy. Providing SAP R/3 access to all Teaching with Enterprise Systems by D. M. Strong, J. Fedorowicz, J. Sager, G. Stewart, and E. Watson Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 17, 2006), 728-755 730 disciplines was expected to pay dividends as faculty members worked together to develop integrated approaches to coursework in the functional areas and as students observed the crossfunctional nature of today’s business processes as embodied in modern enterprise software systems. Table 1. Current Enterprise System Features at each School CSUC LSU QUT Bentley WPI Year Joined 1996 1997 1997 1998 2000 Grad or UG Mostly UG Both Both Both Mostly UG

Integrating information for maintenance

Abstract: Systems and techniques for integrating information for the planning and performance of maintenance activities are described. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a collection of descriptions of maintenance tasks in an enterprise, accessing one or more data stores to receive asset information characterizing assets in the enterprise, process information characterizing assets involved in processes of the enterprise, and process value information characterizing values of the processes to the enterprise, integrating the asset information, the process information, and the process value information to assign costs associated with performance of each of the maintenance tasks, generating a work list including a subset of the collection of maintenance tasks based on the assigned costs, and making the work list available over one or more output devices.

Enterprise education: revisiting Whitehead to satisfy Gibbs

Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to demonstrate that a truly learner‐centred enterprise education programme can be developed within a traditional business school environment.Design/methodology/approach – This paper unites the broad teaching philosophy of Alfred Whitehead with that of Allan Gibbs's enterprise specific teaching philosophies to consider the fitness of the recently developed hic et nunc enterprise framework. This is largely achieved by testing the framework for constructive alignment.Findings – It is argued that the hic et nunc framework is consistent with the philosophies of both Whitehead and Gibb. Further, the framework illustrates a process through which enterprise education programmes can be developed independently of any pressures to conform to more traditional pedagogy.Practical implications – Through careful consideration of the process of constructive alignment, an analytical approach to developing and/or refining an enterprise education program exists. Importantly, it represents an approa...