Showing papers on "Enterprise systems engineering published in 2016"

System and method for securing an enterprise computing environment

Abstract: Methods and systems provided herein include a cyber intelligence system, a unified application firewall, and a cloud security fabric that has enterprise APIs for connecting to the information technology infrastructure of an enterprise, developer APIs 102 for enabling developers to access capabilities of the fabric and connector APIs by which the fabric may discover information about entities relevant to the information security of the enterprise (such as events involving users, applications, and data of the enterprise occurring on a plurality of cloud-enabled platforms, including PaaS/IaaS platforms), with various modules that comprise services deployed in the cloud security fabric, such as a selective encryption module, a policy creation and automation module, a content classification as a service module, and user and entity behavior analytics modules.

Enterprise resource planning

Abstract: ERP 4220 Introduction to Enterprise Decision Dashboard Prototyping (LEC 3.0) Study design and implementation principles for enterprise decision dashboards utilizing data warehouse and databases to support visual analytics. SAP HANA & BW, Business Objects Dashboards, IBM Watson Analytics, SAS Visual Analytics, or similar tools are used for practical assignments. Prerequisite: A grade of "C" or better in IS&T 1750.

Measuring Enterprise Sustainability

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to identify the key requirements for measuring enterprise sustainability. The paper argues that measuring enterprise sustainability requires the explicit consideration of a focal firm, its supply chain and the sustainability context within which the firm operates. Building on this notion, original definitions of enterprise sustainability and enterprise sustainability performance measurement systems (ESPMSs) are proposed. The definitions provide the basis for the development of a novel conceptual framework. The framework is used to identify seven key requirements and 35 associated sub-requirements for an ESPMS. Overall, the requirements highlight that sustainability performance measurement requires a systematic, structured and integrated approach that considers all aspects of enterprise sustainability. The framework presented in this paper is a conceptual model. In recognition of this point, the paper provides discussions on the potential application of the framework and guidance for further research. The academic, managerial and societal implications of the paper are also discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

The New Spectrum of the Cross-Enterprise Solution: The Integration of Supply Chain Management and Enterprise Resources Planning Systems

Abstract: Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of optimizing a company's internal practices and improving the interaction with its suppliers and customers. The philosophy of SCM is to have the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time, and in the right condition. The major business value of an enterprise resources planning (ERP) system lies in its ability to integrate information across an organization and to model and automate its fundamental processes. ERP systems improve the efficiency of management decisions and operation plans and increase the flexibility with adjustments of functionality to react to changes in business needs. This research aims to compare SCR with ERP in terms of their evolution, application and functionality, investigate their relationship, and explore their potential system integration. This study is concluded with the future implications of SCM and EPR systems and the industrial trend toward their integration.

Information Systems Control: A Review and Framework for Emerging Information Systems Processes

Abstract: A major stream of information systems (IS) research examines the topic of control, which focuses on attempts to affect employee behavior as a means to achieve organizational objectives. Despite a rich history of IS control research, approximately 90 percent of the publications focus on only three IS processes: managing information systems development, managing IS outsourcing, and managing security. However, the emergence of new IS processes and technologies with distinct control challenges, such as managing enterprise architecture and managing innovation, highlights a need to consider the wider applicability of past control insights. In this paper, we first integrate existing IS control constructs and relationships into a comprehensive IS control model. Second, we apply this model to emerging IS processes to guide future research and practice. We review 65 influential IS control-related journal papers and identify five control dimensions. We then consolidate these dimensions into a single, integrated model to apply past IS control findings to the challenges of emerging information systems by posing a series of related propositions. With this paper, we position current IS control research to be increasingly applicable and relevant to tomorrow’s emerging IS opportunities and challenges.

On domain modelling of the service system with its application to enterprise information systems

Abstract: Information systems are a kind of service systems and they are throughout every element of a modern industrial and business system, much like blood in our body. Types of information systems are heterogeneous because of extreme uncertainty in changes in modern industrial and business systems. To effectively manage information systems, modelling of the work domain or domain of information systems is necessary. In this paper, a domain modelling framework for the service system is proposed and its application to the enterprise information system is outlined. The framework is defined based on application of a general domain modelling tool called function-context-behaviour-principle-state-structure FCBPSS. The FCBPSS is based on a set of core concepts, namely: function, context, behaviour, principle, state and structure and system decomposition. Different from many other applications of FCBPSS in systems engineering, the FCBPSS is applied to both infrastructure and substance systems, which is novel and effective to modelling of service systems including enterprise information systems. It is to be noted that domain modelling of systems e.g. enterprise information systems is a key to integration of heterogeneous systems and to coping with unanticipated situations facing to systems.

Towards Integrating Microservices with Adaptable Enterprise Architecture

Abstract: IT environments that consist of a very large number of rather small structures like microservices, Internet of Things (IoT) components, or mobility systems are emerging to support flexible and agile products and services in the age of digital transformation. Biological metaphors of living and adaptable ecosystems with service-oriented enterprise architectures provide the foundation for self-optimizing, resilient run- time environments and distributed information systems. We are extending Enterprise Architecture (EA) methodologies and models that cover a high degree of heterogeneity and distribution to support the digital transformation and related information systems with micro-granular architectures. Our aim is to support flexibility and agile transformation for both IT and business capabilities within adaptable digital enterprise architectures. The present research paper investigates mechanisms for integrating Microservice Architectures (MSA) by extending original enterprise architecture reference models with elements for more flexible architectural metamodels and EA-mini-descriptions.

Design theory and methodology for enterprise systems

Abstract: Design is to make decisions on attributes that describe a system. A design process generates design results that are open-ended often with iteration especially to a complex system. Complexity is me...

Towards the development of the framework for inter sensing enterprise architecture

Abstract: Inter-enterprise architecture (IEA) is a new concept that seeks to apply the tools and methodologies of enterprise architecture (EA) in a collaborative context, in order to model collaborative organizations in an inclusive manner. According to the main enterprise architectures proposed to this point, an EA should be conformed at least for a framework, a methodology and a modelling language. Sensing enterprise (SE) is an attribute of an enterprise or a network that allows it to react to business stimuli originating on the Internet. These fields have come into focus recently, and there is not evidence of the use of IEA for modelling a SE, while finding an interesting gap to work on. Thus, this paper proposes an initial framework for inter sensing enterprise architecture (FISEA), which seeks to classify, organize, store and communicate, at the conceptual level, all the elements for inter-sensing enterprise architectures and their relationships, ensuring their consistency and integrity. This FISEA provides a clear idea about the elements and views that create collaborative network and their inter-relationships, based on the support of Future Internet.

Adaptive Enterprise Architecture for the Future: Towards a Reconceptualization of EA

Abstract: In some conventional definitions, Enterprise Architecture (EA) is conceived as a descriptive overview of the enterprise, while in other views EA is seen as a prescriptive framework of principles and models that helps translate business strategy to enterprise change. The conceptualizations of EA also vary in scope. There is an increasing recognition of EA as a systemic, enterprise-wide capability encompassing all relevant facets of the organization, transcending the traditional IT-centric view. However, we argue that none of the conventional conceptualizations of EA are adaptive in the face of today's complex environment. We view that an adaptive EA must go beyond a single organization and fully appreciate enterprise-in-environment ecosystemic perspective. Drawing on the heritage of Open Socio-Technical Systems Design and adopting the "three schools of thought" as a meta-paradigmatic backdrop, the paper features four different views of long-time scholar-practitioners, who discuss what an adaptive enterprise architecture would entail. Integration of these views paints a radically reconceptualized picture of enterprise architecture for the future. With this paper, we want to lay a foundation for a debate on the need for alternative conceptualizations, manifestations and research agenda for enterprise architecture.

Towards the development of interoperable sensing systems for the future enterprise

Abstract: Current research efforts in the area of enterprise systems are focusing on the development and standardization of new technologies to sustain the "Future Internet based Enterprise". In this context, emerging Internet technologies are integrated into enterprise information systems in order to provide sustainable business benefits. These new systems have been included in a broad concept of "Future Internet Based Enterprise Systems". The present paper proposes a sensing based approach to the design of Future Internet Based Enterprise Systems. To sustain the seamless integration and system interoperability a framework to integrate the sensing ability with enterprise information systems is discussed.

Conceptual modeling for the design of intelligent and emergent information systems

Abstract: A multi-perspective conceptual modeling approach.Co-development of enterprise and information systems.Combining enterprise modeling techniques, design rationale and system dynamics.The utility of the approach is demonstrated though a case study. A key requirement to today's fast changing economic environment is the ability of organizations to adapt dynamically in an effective and efficient manner. Information and Communication Technologies play a crucially important role in addressing such adaptation requirements. The notion of `intelligent software' has emerged as a means by which enterprises can respond to changes in a reactive manner but also to explore, in a pro-active manner, possibilities for new business models. The development of such software systems demands analysis, design and implementation paradigms that recognize the need for `co-development' of these systems with enterprise goals, processes and capabilities. The work presented in this paper is motivated by this need and to this end it proposes a paradigm that recognizes co-development as a knowledge-based activity. The proposed solution is based on a multi-perspective modeling approach that involves (i) modeling key aspects of the enterprise, (ii) reasoning about design choices and (iii) supporting strategic decision-making through simulations. The utility of the approach is demonstrated though a case study in the field of marketing for a start-up company.

Achieving manufacturing excellence through the integration of enterprise systems and simulation

Abstract: This paper discusses the significance of the enterprise systems and simulation integration in improving shop floor’s short-term production planning capability. The ultimate objectives are to identify the integration protocols, optimisation parameters and critical design artefacts, thereby identifying key ‘ingredients’ that help in setting out a future research agenda in pursuit of optimum decision-making at the shop floor level. While the integration of enterprise systems and simulation gains a widespread agreement within the existing work, the optimality, scalability and flexibility of the schedules remained unanswered. Furthermore, there seems to be no commonality or pattern as to how many core modules are required to enable such a flexible and scalable integration. Nevertheless, the objective of such integration remains clear, i.e. to achieve an optimum total production time, lead time, cycle time, production release rates and cost. The issues presently faced by existing enterprise systems (ES)...

What do we know about the role of enterprise architecture in enterprise integration? A systematic mapping study

Abstract: – Constant changes in the environment seem to have become the biggest challenge of a modern enterprise, which emphasizes the constant need to integrate the enterprise into its changing environment. Aiming at eliminating the integration challenges, EA is proposed as a solution. The purpose of this paper is to survey and analyse the available literature on determining the role of EA in EI and also to identify gaps and state-of-the-art in research. , – This paper presents a systematic mapping study that found 50 papers in the intersection of EA and EI, these papers were surveyed, analysed, and classified with respect to research focus, research method, and paper type. , – Based on the analyses of the final 50 articles, the authors realized that “EA framework” is the dominating research focus of these studies. “Evaluation research” is recognized as the most common paper type in this area. However, “Experience paper” was a rare paper type in this research domain. “Constructive research” and “Case study/multiple case studies” are widely applied as the research method. “Survey”, “Delphi study” and “Grounded theory” are the least employed research methods. The conclusion was that there is a need for empirical research in this area. After analysing the articles based on their publication year, the authors also noticed a significant growth between 2004 and 2010. After 2010 the number of publications had a downward trend. , – To the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first systematic literature study regarding the role of EA in EI. There are several systematic literature reviews about the EA or EI separately but none of them has addressed the specific realm of the research. Hence, the goal of this study is to provide a map of existing literature to enable improvement of the practice with the known research results and to identify gaps for future research.

Enterprise Knowledge Graphs: A Backbone of Linked Enterprise Data

Abstract: Semantic technologies in enterprises have recently received increasing attention from both the research and industrial side. The concept of Linked Enterprise Data (LED) describes a framework to incorporate benefits of semantic technologies into enterprise IT environments. However, LED still remains an abstract idea lacking a point of origin, i.e., station zero from which it comes to existence. In this paper we argue and demonstrate that Enterprise Knowledge Graphs (EKGs) might be considered as an embodiment of LED lifting corporate information management to a semantic level which ultimately allows for real artificial intelligence applications. By EKG we refer to a semantic network of concepts, properties, individuals and links representing and referencing foundational and domain knowledge relevant for an enterprise. Although the concept of EKGs was not invented yesterday, both enterprise and semantic communities have not yet come up with a formal comprehensive framework for designing such graphs. In this paper we aim to join the dots between the expanding interest in EKGs expressed by those communities and the lack of blueprints for realizing the EKGs. A thorough study of the key design concepts provides a multi-dimensional aspects matrix from which an enterprise is able to choose specific features of the highest priority. We emphasize the importance of various data fusion approaches, e.g., unified and federated. In the extensive evaluation section we investigate the effect of the chosen approach on the EKG performance along several dimensions, e.g., basic reasoning and OWL entailment which account for machine understanding of the EKG data, and access control subsystem which is of the utmost importance in large enterprises.

Capability Oriented Enterprise Knowledge Modeling: The CODEK Approach

Abstract: Enterprise modeling has been defined as the ‘art of externalizing enterprise knowledge’. Traditional approaches to enterprise modeling rely on ‘blueprint thinking’ that focuses on the formal structure and organization of the enterprise, with business processes being the fundamental components of the enterprise operation. Such approaches generally assume enterprises as deterministic, top-down managed entities, with a well-defined group of processes that develop and maintain products or services for their customers. However, the prevalence and volatility of digital enterprises shifts enterprise modeling towards a more dynamic enterprise configuration, to embrace the idea of dynamic adaptation according to the internal and external influences that constantly (re-)shape the business environment. To this end, enterprise modeling research has adopted model-driven development methods and service-oriented architectures originating from the software development domain, as a means to achieve flexible service delivery and the notion of dynamic capability from the strategic management domain in order to address adaptation to the dynamic business context. This chapter will outline emergent trends in the field, introduce a conceptual framework for the capability-driven development of enterprise knowledge and discuss how this can be used to enable the design of capabilities and services using examples from an eGovernment case study.

Service-based negotiation for advanced collaboration in enterprise networks

Abstract: Information systems support organisations to achieve greater efficiency by automating their activities. Nowadays, in the actual competitive and global business context, the advent of enterprise networking has been challenging collaboration, coordination and continuous interactions among dissimilar information systems to adapt and improve them. Sustainability of interoperability among heterogeneous systems regarding sharing information and knowledge in a collaborative dynamic environment is hard to achieve and maintain. This paper proposes a service-based negotiation framework for advanced collaboration in enterprise networks, as a solution to improve the sustainability of interoperability within enterprise information systems. Validation in industrial scenario is presented and discussed.

Enterprise Opportunity and Risk

Abstract: In traditional systems engineering (TSE) environments, and particularly in recent years, many are concerned about risk management. So much so that risks are identified early and often, and mitigation techniques are aggressively pursued. In contrast one does not hear as much about opportunity management. What about enterprise systems engineering (ESE) environments? Do traditional methods of handling risk and opportunity carry over, or should we be concerned about potential changes in the way we view the problem? Assuming there are new perspectives to bring to bear on this topic, what are they, and what principles might be discovered and applied to the enterprise to better deal with opportunity and risk? This paper offers some answers to these questions: • There is duality in treating risks and opportunities. • In ESE, be aggressive with opportunity and accepting of risk. • The greatest enterprise risk may be in not pursuing enterprise opportunities. Introduction In a recent book on opportunity management [Hillson, 2004] Hillson makes a rather convincing case that opportunities get “short shrift” in most programs. See, for example, Hillson’s comments (on pp. iii, vii, and xvi): “There is ... a systemic weakness in risk management as undertaken on most projects. The standard risk process is limited to dealing only with uncertainties that might have negative impact (threats). This means that risk management as currently practiced is failing to address around half of the potential uncertainties—the ones with positive impact (opportunities).” Furthermore, anecdotally, the author of this paper has noticed that many—if not most—risk and risk management documents, tools, processes, and websites, etc. do not even mention or discuss opportunities or opportunity management. Therefore, it seems to make sense to “appreciate” opportunity at the system scale. Hillson views an “opportunity” as the opposite of a “threat” and adopts the position that these two factors together constitute risk. But, he also provides extensive evidence of the viewpoint that treats opportunity as the opposite of risk. In the present author’s opinion, the latter view is more traditional and straightforward; though Hillson makes the case that the former is becoming more prevalent in academic and professional circles. Nonetheless, in this theoretical paper, opportunity is viewed as the opposite of risk. The author hypothesizes that in systems engineering at an enterprise scale the focus should be on opportunity, and that enterprise risk should be viewed more as something that threatens the pursuit of enterprise opportunities, as depicted in Fig. 1. Fig. 1 is meant to suggest that the importance of opportunity management should increase qualitatively as one proceeds from system, to System of Systems (SoS), to enterprise scales. This is partially based on the premise, supported by historical fact and ad hoc observations, that risk

Urban enterprise: A review of Smart City frameworks from an Enterprise Architecture perspective

Abstract: With the increasing interest towards the concept of Smart Cities from the city governments world-wide there is a need for useful and Information Systems oriented approach to understand Smart City propositions. In this paper we review a Smart City from an Enterprise Architecture (EA) perspective. We adapt TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) to derive the concept of Enterprise Concerns. These concerns will subsequently be used to review the Smart City literature. Finally, we summarize our findings and propose the concept of the Urban Enterprise composed of Urban Enterprise Components.

The key principles of process manager motivation in production and administration processes in an industrial enterprise

Abstract: The basic premise of sustainable development is that companies should completely re-evaluate their enterprise work logic and process organization. Most of the necessary changes concern employee stimulation and motivation. If we are truly interested in improving business results and the effectiveness of business processes – there would be no progress otherwise – we have to strive to break down the barriers between company management (leadership) and employees in order to establish effective relationships between firms and customers. This paper presents research results of process manager activities in modern industrial enterprises, connected with a methodology proposal for the systematically-oriented process manager motivation of employees in accordance with the increased competitiveness of production and administration processes. It also presents an effective methodology of how to increase the positive effects of welldefined employee motivations from the process manager ś perspective. The core benefit of this methodology lies in the design of a systematic approach to the motivation process from the process manager side, allowing for radical performance improvement via production and administrative processes and the increased competitiveness of enterprise processes.

Building and Exploring an Enterprise Knowledge Graph for Investment Analysis

Abstract: Full-fledged enterprise information can be a great weapon in investment analysis. However, enterprise information is scattered in different databases and websites. The information from a single source is incomplete and also suffers from noise. It is not an easy task to integrate and utilize information from diverse sources in real business scenarios. In this paper, we present an approach to build knowledge graphs (KGs) by exploiting semantic technologies to reconcile the data from diverse sources incrementally. We build a national-wide enterprise KG which incorporates information about 40,000,000 enterprises in China. We also provide querying about enterprises and data visualization capabilities as well as novel investment analysis scenarios, including finding an enterprise’s real controllers, innovative enterprise analysis, enterprise path discovery and so on. The KG and its applications are currently used by two securities companies in their investment banking and investment consulting businesses.

A catalog of automated analysis methods for enterprise models.

Abstract: Enterprise models are created for documenting and communicating the structure and state of Business and Information Technologies elements of an enterprise. After models are completed, they are mainly used to support analysis. Model analysis is an activity typically based on human skills and due to the size and complexity of the models, this process can be complicated and omissions or miscalculations are very likely. This situation has fostered the research of automated analysis methods, for supporting analysts in enterprise analysis processes. By reviewing the literature, we found several analysis methods; nevertheless, they are based on specific situations and different metamodels; then, some analysis methods might not be applicable to all enterprise models. This paper presents the work of compilation (literature review), classification, structuring, and characterization of automated analysis methods for enterprise models, expressing them in a standardized modeling language. In addition, we have implemented the analysis methods in our modeling tool.