Domain architecture a design framework for system development and integration

The ever growing complexity of software systems has revealed many short-comings in existing software engineering practices and has raised interest in architecture-driven software development. A system\u27s architecture provides a model of the system that suppresses implementation detail, allowing the architects to concentrate on the analysis and decisions that are most critical to structuring the system to satisfy its requirements. Recently, interests of researchers and practi-tioners have shifted from individual system architectures to architectures for classes of software systems which provide more general, reusable solutions to the issues of overall system organization, interoperability, and allocation of services to system components. These generic architectures, such as product line architectures and domain architectures, promote reuse and interoperability, and create a basis for cost effective construction of high-quality systems. Our focus in this dissertation is on domain architectures as a means of development and integration of large-scale, domain-specific business software systems. Business imperatives, including flexibility, productivity, quality, and ability to adapt to changes, have fostered demands for flexible, coherent and enterprise--wide integrated business systems. The components of such systems, developed separately or purchased off the shelf, need to cohesively form an overall compu-tational environment for the business. The inevitable complexity of such integrated solutions and the highly-demanding process of their construction, management, and evolution support require new software engineering methodologies and tools. Domain architectures, prescribing the organization of software systems in a business domain, hold a promise to serve as a foundation on which such integrated business systems can be effectively constructed. To meet the above expectations, software architectures must be properly defined, represented, and applied, which requires suitable methodologies as well as process and tool support. Despite research efforts, however, state-of-the-art methods and tools for architecture-based system development do not yet meet the practical needs of system developers. The primary focus of this dissertation is on developing methods and tools to support domain architecture engineering and on leveraging architectures to achieve improved system development and integration in presence of increased complexity. In particular, the thesis explores issues related to the following three aspects of software technology: system complexity and software architectures as tools to alleviate complexity; domain architectures as frameworks for construction of large scale, flexible, enterprise-wide software systems; and architectural models and representation techniques as a basis for good” design. The thesis presents an archi-tectural taxonomy to help categorize and better understand architectural efforts. Furthermore, it clarifies the purpose of domain architectures and characterizes them in detail. To support the definition and application of domain architectures we have developed a method for domain architecture engineering and representation: GARM-ASPECT. GARM, the Generic Architecture Reference Model, underlying the method, is a system of modeling abstractions, relations and recommendations for building representations of reference software architectures. The model\u27s focus on reference and domain architectures determines its main distinguishing features: multiple views of architectural elements, a separate rule system to express constraints on architecture element types, and annotations such as “libraries” of patterns and “logs” of guidelines. ASPECT is an architecture description language based on GARM. It provides a normalized vocabulary for representing the skeleton of an architecture, its structural view, and establishes a framework for capturing archi-tectural constraints. It also allows extensions of the structural view with auxiliary information, such as behavior or quality specifications. In this respect, ASPECT provides facilities for establishing relationships among different specifications and gluing them together within an overall architectural description. This design allows flexibility and adaptability of the methodology to the specifics of a domain or a family of systems. ASPECT supports the representation of reference architectures as well as individual system architectures. The practical applicability of this method has been tested through a case study in an industrial setting. The approach to architecture engineering and representation, presented in this dissertation, is pragmatic and oriented towards software practitioners. GARM-ASPECT, as well as the taxonomy of architectures are of use to architects, system planners and system engineers. Beyond these practical contributions, this thesis also creates a more solid basis for expbring the applicability of architectural abstractions, the practicality of representation approaches, and the changes required to the devel-opment process in order to achieve the benefits from an architecture-driven software technology

Role of stage gates in effective knowledge sharing during the product development process

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2002."February 2002."Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-139).Premise of the thesis is that in today's knowledge economy, competitive advantage comes from effective use of corporate knowledge. This thesis compares and contrasts current practices for knowledge sharing in Xerox with an idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing. The study explores the hypothesis that stage gates in a product development process are important for sharing corporate knowledge across functions and organizations, and that the product development process itself serves as an infrastructure for knowledge sharing. This study involved an analysis of knowledge sharing practices during stage gates reviews and how they evolved over time after stage-gate reviews. To develop an idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing, experts of knowledge management in academia and industry were interviewed, and an extensive literature review was completed. This served as a backdrop for analysis in the case study at Xerox. The case study at Xerox utilized a personal interview approach complemented by a survey through electronic mail, and assessment was done against the idealized model of best practices for knowledge sharing. Twenty-six senior managers at Xerox were interviewed/surveyed. Strengths of Xerox in knowledge sharing and areas of improvements were identified. Using open ended questions, a holistic view for the scope of Xerox efforts, as well as the depth and quality of the best practices during the product development process was compiled. Using Carlile's knowledge boundary framework and boundary objects, attempt was done to transform engineering knowledge from one domain to another. This framework also served as a basis for suggestions for future improvements in knowledge sharing at Xerox in the areas of improvements identified through the interviews/surveys. Though any single company has not discovered the mantra for knowledge management and sharing; several good practices, which were consistently enablers of perceived success, were identified. The effective enablers towards knowledge sharing were a synergistic gathering of "common sense" items such as morale, trust, common goals, value and criticality of knowledge, diversity, and structure, rewards/recognition, support and knowledge initiatives along multiple fronts. It was discovered, that the product managers perceive that Xerox has considerable success in promoting a knowledge culture and has an effective product development process. It was also found that knowledge boundary framework and boundary objects serve as a good vehicle to explain the difficulty of knowledge sharing across functional and organizational boundaries. Engineering tools such as critical parameter management could benefit by a uniform, standardized approach to bringing together subject matter experts from various domains and creating the environment for creating new knowledge and innovations. Systems processes like the Xerox platform approach, where the systems architecture is composed of common platform elements, and core competencies in the development of reusable components for the platform elements are the basis for the Xerox product development process. Using the knowledge acquired through practical experience and education and taking a holistic view of the product development process as the boundary framework for knowledge transfer, we used the eCPM (Engineering Critical Parameter Management Tool) to translate knowledge from a domain expert in mechanical engineering to a common semantic base for transformation into the domain of software engineering. Specific tacit knowledge on what makes a parameter critical and how it plays a role in mechanical aspects in the design of Xerox devices, such as the system itself, media and motion path, marker path and the control and image path, as well as how to control these designs is to be transformed into the domain of software engineering. It was found that use of the eCPM tool to develop similar meaning of parameters for tuning software resources such as CPU speeds, memory utilization and performance is possible. Attempt to create new knowledge in the domain of software will be proceeding with a larger number of domain experts. Specific new knowledge in establishment of which software parameters to be labeled as critical (versus design parameters allocated and controlled via Input /Output/ Constraint values), which parameters should be system control parameters (those which span over multiple subsystems, and have latitudes within which to be tweaked in various sub-systems), the failure modes and latitudes for the failure modes will be part of future work. This will be part of a knowledge sharing and management framework proposed in the thesis because of the diagnostic analysis done of the current state at Xerox.by Tulsi D. Ramchandani.S.M

Planning and implementation of effective collaboration in construction projects

The 21st century is now seen as the time for the construction industry to embrace new ways of working if it is to continue to be competitive and meet the needs of its ever demanding clients. Collaborative working is considered by many to be essential if design and construction teams are to consider the whole lifecycle of the construction product. Much of the recent work on collaborative working has focused on the delivery of technological solutions with a focus on web (extranets), CAD (visualisation), and knowledge management technologies. However, it is now recognised that good collaboration does not result from the implementation of information technology solutions alone. The organisational and people issues, which are not readily solved by pure technical systems, need to be resolved. However, approaches that exclusively focus on organisational and people issues will not reap the benefits derived from the use of technology, especially in the context of distributed teams which are the norm in construction. Work currently being undertaken at Loughborough University aims to bring together the benefits enabled by the technology, with the organisational, and its people issues to provide a framework enabling high level strategic decisions to be made to implement effective collaboration. This paper reports on the initial stages of the project: the background to the project, the methodology used, and findings from the literature survey and the requirements capture survey conducted as part of the project

Designing a novel virtual collaborative environment to support collaboration in design review meetings

Project review meetings are part of the project management process and are organised to assess progress and resolve any design conflicts to avoid delays in construction. One of the key challenges during a project review meeting is to bring the stakeholders together and use this time effectively to address design issues as quickly as possible. At present, current technology solutions based on BIM or CAD are information-centric and do not allow project teams to collectively explore the design from a range of perspectives and brainstorm ideas when design conflicts are encountered. This paper presents a system architecture that can be used to support multi-functional team collaboration more effectively during such design review meetings. The proposed architecture illustrates how information-centric BIM or CAD systems can be made human- and team-centric to enhance team communication and problem solving. An implementation of the proposed system architecture has been tested for its utility, likability and usefulness during design review meetings. The evaluation results suggest that the collaboration platform has the potential to enhance collaboration among multi-functional teams

A framework for deriving semantic web services

Web service-based development represents an emerging approach for the development of distributed information systems. Web services have been mainly applied by software practitioners as a means to modularize system functionality that can be offered across a network (e.g., intranet and/or the Internet). Although web services have been predominantly developed as a technical solution for integrating software systems, there is a more business-oriented aspect that developers and enterprises need to deal with in order to benefit from the full potential of web services in an electronic market. This ‘ignored’ aspect is the representation of the semantics underlying the services themselves as well as the ‘things’ that the services manage. Currently languages like the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) provide the syntactic means to describe web services, but lack in providing a semantic underpinning. In order to harvest all the benefits of web services technology, a framework has been developed for deriving business semantics from syntactic descriptions of web services. The benefits of such a framework are two-fold. Firstly, the framework provides a way to gradually construct domain ontologies from previously defined technical services. Secondly, the framework enables the migration of syntactically defined web services toward semantic web services. The study follows a design research approach which (1) identifies the problem area and its relevance from an industrial case study and previous research, (2) develops the framework as a design artifact and (3) evaluates the application of the framework through a relevant scenario

The interaction of lean and building information modeling in construction

Lean construction and Building Information Modeling are quite different initiatives, but both are having profound impacts on the construction industry. A rigorous analysis of the myriad specific interactions between them indicates that a synergy exists which, if properly understood in theoretical terms, can be exploited to improve construction processes beyond the degree to which it might be improved by application of either of these paradigms independently. Using a matrix that juxtaposes BIM functionalities with prescriptive lean construction principles, fifty-six interactions have been identified, all but four of which represent constructive interaction. Although evidence for the majority of these has been found, the matrix is not considered complete, but rather a framework for research to explore the degree of validity of the interactions. Construction executives, managers, designers and developers of IT systems for construction can also benefit from the framework as an aid to recognizing the potential synergies when planning their lean and BIM adoption strategies