Costs, Benefits and Value Distribution – Ingredients for Successful Cross-Organizational ES Business Cases

This paper introduces my PhD research project on developing guidelines for creating successful business cases for Enterprise System implementations in network settings. Three important aspects that were found to be important in such business cases are: the costs, benefits and the value distribution within a network. Each of the three aspects is addressed in this paper and the relationships between them are pointed out. A research model is presented showing how all three aspects contribute to the main goal of defining successful business case guidelines

Business Case Development for Inter-Organizational ES Implementations

This paper describes my PhD research on the development of business case guidelines that can be used for complex information system implementations, such as inter-organizational enterprise systems (ES). I identify problems and solutions related to the issue of estimating the costs and benefits of such complex implementations. Next to describing the research method used in my PhD project, I discuss what my research adds to the body of research and why this work is of interest for both the research community and practitioners

A Framework proposal for monitoring and evaluating training in ERP implementation project

During the last years some researchers have studied the topic of critical success factors in ERP implementations, out of which 'training' is cited as one of the most ones. Up to this moment, there is not enough research on the management and operationalization of critical success factors within ERP implementation projects.Postprint (published version

Goals/questions/metrics method and SAP implementation projects

During the last years some researchers have studied the critical success factors (CSFs) in ERP implementations. However, until now, no one has studied how these CSFs should be put in practice to help organizations achieve success in ERP implementations. This technical research report attempts to define the usage of Goals/Questions/Metrics (GQM) approach in the definition of a measurement system for ERP implementation projects. GQM approach is a mechanism for defining and interpreting operational, measurable goals. Lately, because of its intuitive nature the approach has gained widespread appeal. We present a metrics overview and a description of GQM approach. Then we provide an example of GQM application for monitoring sustained management support in ERP implementations. Sustained management support is the most cited critical success factor in ERP implementation projects.Postprint (published version

Enterprise resource planning in construction: An evaluation of recent implementations

In a large number of construction firms, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have replaced non-integrated information systems by integrated and maintainable software. The implementation of ERP systems in the construction industry is a difficult task. So far, ERP implementations have yielded more failures than successes in this industry. Our study tries to understand the underlying factors that cause success or failure of ERP in construction by analysing how ERP fits into the IT and business strategy of a firm. Empirical research was conducted by a multiple case study of three ERP-implementations in different business environments. Based on the results of this study, propositions are developed that relate factors for the success of ERP in construction to concepts of the existing literature on IT and strategy. These propositions are indicative, but present nevertheless a clear overall tren

Privacy Management Service Contracts as a New Business Opportunity for Operators

Recognizing the importance of privacy management as a business process and a business support process, this paper proposes the use of service level agreements (SLA’s) around privacy features, including qualitative and quantitative ones. Privacy metrics are defined by both parties with boundary values on each qualitative or qualitative feature. Their distribution is relying on stress distributions used in this field. The use of service level agreements also casts privacy management into a business perspective with benefits and costs to either party in a process. This approach is especially relevant for communications operators as brokers between content owners (individuals, businesses) and enterprise applications; in this context, the privacy SLA management would be carried out by the operator, while the terms and conditions of the SLA negotiation reside with the two external parties. This work was carried out as part of the large EU project PRIME www.prime.project.eu.org. on privacy enhancing technologies.Content Owners;Enterprise Business Processes;Managed Service Contracts;Privacy Agreements;Service Level Agreements (SLA's);Telecommunications Operators

Towards an aspect weaving BPEL engine

This position paper proposes the use of dynamic aspects and the visitor design pattern to obtain a highly configurable and extensible BPEL engine. Using these two techniques, the core of this infrastructural software can be customised to meet new requirements and add features such as debugging, execution monitoring, or changing to another Web Service selection policy. Additionally, it can easily be extended to cope with customer-specific BPEL extensions. We propose the use of dynamic aspects not only on the engine itself but also on the workflow in order to tackle the problems of Web Service hot deployment and hot fixes to long running processes. In this way, composing aWeb Service "on-the-fly" means weaving its choreography interface into the workflow

Improving Information Flow within the Production Management System with Web Services

The efficiency of the production planning and control process in construction depends significantly on the reliability and timely availability of resource information. The Last Planner system for production control mandates that a construction task should not be started unless all the seven resource prerequisites are in satisfactory condition. Failure to do so results in wasteful processes. However, this information is not readily available due to the lack of systems integration that prevails within the industry. Current implementations of the last planner system mostly rely on the team leaders‘ and foreman‘s ability to gather the required information for the weekly planning meetings and also for the look-ahead planning. However, much time is wasted chasing relevant information due to the above-mentioned problems. Also, the reliability of planning could be much improved if there is a system available, which aggregates resource information from various project stakeholders in one place. In such a situation, web services could provide an ideal platform for integration as they provide a flexible way to integrate disparate systems, with choreography based on identified business processes drawn from Last Planner and implemented using BPMN/BPEL. With the improvement in connectivity as a result of better availability of high speed Internet through mobile and fixed networks, there is a better opportunity for information integration through web services. A conceptual framework based on web services is put forward which aims to improve the information flow within the industry and provide the right information at the right time to enable better planning and control within the production system