Enterprise Composition Architecture for Micro-Granular Digital Services and Products

The digitization of our society changes the way we live, work, learn, communicate, and collaborate. This defines the strategical context for composing resilient enterprise architectures for micro-granular digital services and products. The change from a closed-world modeling perspective to more flexible open-world composition and evolution of system architectures defines the moving context for adaptable systems, which are essential to enable the digital transformation. Enterprises are presently transforming their strategy and culture together with their processes and information systems to become more digital. The digital transformation deeply disrupts existing enterprises and economies. Since years a lot of new business opportunities appeared using the potential of the Internet and related digital technologies, like Internet of Things, services computing, cloud computing, big data with analytics, mobile systems, collaboration networks, and cyber physical systems. Digitization fosters the development of IT systems with many rather small and distributed structures, like Internet of Things or mobile systems. In this paper, we are focusing on the continuous bottom-up integration of micro-granular architectures for a huge amount of dynamically growing systems and services, like Internet of Things and Microservices, as part of a new digital enterprise architecture. To integrate micro-granular architecture models to living architectural model versions we are extending more traditional enterprise architecture reference models with state of art elements for agile architectural engineering to support the digitalization of services with related products, and their processes

ARCHITECTING STRUCTURAL FLEXIBILITY IN DESIGN PROCESSES – A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC SECTOR DIGITAL INNOVATION

Public sector organizations (PSO) are under pressure to undertake digital innovation in order to meet the challenges of a higher demand for service quality despite tighter budgetary restrictions. Effective digital innovation presupposes the flexible and appealing collaboration of heterogeneous actors possessing distinct knowledge loosely coupled in a complex service ecosystem. However, many PSOs lack access to employees possessing the specialized knowledge needed to execute digital innovation design processes and may thus need to seek external collaborations. This paper reports a case study of a PSO pilot project attempting to facilitate an inclusive design process for digital innovation. The study examines how teams comprising public sector professionals and private sector developers come to be involved and awarded agency during a digital innovation design process in the public sector. Findings indicate a need to architect conditions that allow for flexible provisional participation in the design process, thereby allowing novel collaborations to emerge, facilitating access to innovation intermediation and the integration of knowledge resources required for successful digital innovation. This paper contributes to our understanding of the setup and execution of digital innovation design processes in the public sector

A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-centric Digital Ecosystem for Smart Airport Life Cycle Management

An increasing number of new airport infrastructure construction and improvement projects are being delivered in today\u27s modern world. However, value creation is a recurring issue due to inefficiencies in managing capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), while trying to optimize project constraints of scope, time, cost, quality, and resources. In this new era of smart infrastructure, digitalization transforms the way projects are planned and delivered. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a key digital process technique that has become an imperative for today\u27s Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) sector. This research suggests a BIM-centric digital ecosystem by detailing technical and strategic aspects of Airport BIM implementation and digital technology integration from a life cycle perspective. This research provides a novel approach for consistent and continuous use of digital information between business and functional levels of an airport by developing a digital platform solution that will enable seamless flow of information across functions. Accordingly, this study targets to achieve three objectives: 1- To provide a scalable know-how of BIM-enabled digital transformation; 2- To guide airport owners and major stakeholders towards converging information siloes for airport life cycle data management by an Airport BIM Framework; 3- To develop a BIM-based digital platform architecture towards realization of an airport digital twin for airport infrastructure life cycle management. Airport infrastructures can be considered as a System of Systems (SoS). As such, Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is selected as the key methodology towards designing a digital ecosystem. Applying MBSE principles leads to forming an integrating framework for managing the digital ecosystem. Furthermore, this research adopts convergent parallel mixed methods to collect and analyze multiple forms of data. Data collection tools include extensive literature and industry review; an online questionnaire; semi-structured interviews with airport owner parties; focus group discussions; first-hand observations; and document reviews. Data analysis stage includes multiple explanatory case study analyses, thematic analysis, project mapping, percent coverage analysis for coded themes to achieve Objective 1; thematic analysis, cluster analysis, framework analysis, and non-parametric statistical analysis for Objective 2; and qualitative content analysis, non-parametric statistical analysis to accomplish Objective 3. This research presents a novel roadmap toward facilitation of smart airports with alignment and integration of disruptive technologies with business and operational aspects of airports. Multiple comprehensive case study analyses on international large-hub airports and triangulation of organization-level and project-level results systematically generate scalable technical and strategic guidelines for BIM implementation. The proposed platform architecture will incentivize major stakeholders for value-creation, data sharing, and control throughout a project life cycle. Introducing scalability and minimizing complexity for end-users through a digital platform approach will lead to a more connected environment. Consequently, a digital ecosystem enables sophisticated interaction between people, places, and assets. Model-driven approach provides an effective strategy for enhanced decision-making that helps optimization of project resources and allows fast adaptation to emerging business and operational demands. Accordingly, airport sustainability measures -economic vitality, operational efficiency, natural resources, and social responsibility- will improve due to higher levels of efficiency in CapEx and OpEx. Changes in business models for large capital investments and introducing sustainability to supply chains are among the anticipated broader impacts of this study

MaCuDE IS Task Force Phase II Report: Views of Industry Leaders on Big Data Analytics and AI

This paper represents the Phase II report of the Management Curriculum for the Digital Era (MaCuDE) disciplinary task force on information systems (IS). Aligned with the current work of the AIS (Association for Information Systems) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), we focus on the current and future industry driven educational needs and requirements posed by big data analytics (BDA), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and related innovations. In this report, we probe and report on the views of industry leaders regarding BDA/AI education needs. We conducted 18 rich semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of industry leaders around key changes and issues related to workforce demands in digital transformation and associated educational needs. We performed a grounded theory based analysis of key themes in reported education needs. We note the shifting meaning of AI and BDA phenomena and identify three main organizational level needs for the digital era -capability improvement and transformation, decision-making strategies and tactics, and changes in operations or products- and connect them to three individual professional competencies- fundamental environmental competencies, data information and content, and system design competencies- necessary to deliver them. Based on the analysis we outline several novel competency-based IS curriculum recommendations for the master\u27s and undergraduate level IS education

Internet of Things and Their Coming Perspectives: A Real Options Approach

Internet of things is developing at a dizzying rate, and companies are forced to implement it in order to maintain their operational efficiency. The high flexibility inherent to these technologies makes it necessary to apply an appropriate measure, which properly assesses risks and rewards. Real options methodology is available as a tool which fits the conditions, both economic and strategic, under which investment in internet of things technologies is developed. The contribution of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it offers an adequate tool to assess the strategic value of investment in internet of things technologies. On the other hand, it tries to raise awareness among managers of internet of things technologies because of their potential to contribute to economic and social progress. The results of the research described in this paper highlight the importance of taking action as quickly as possible if companies want to obtain the best possible performance. In order to enhance the understanding of internet of things technologies investment, this paper provides a methodology to assess the implementation of internet of things technologies by using the real options approach; in particular, the option to expand has been proposed for use in the decision-making process

Developing Digitalization Strategies for SMEs: A Lightweight Architecture-based Method

Like larger companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to develop and implement digitalization strategies. These help to address necessary organizational- and technology-related changes in order to create competitive advantages. However, SMEs often face specific challenges, including a lack of IT know-how, relevant market information and appropriate methods for developing a strategy. In this paper, we present a lightweight, architecture-based method including its underlying model for the development and implementation of digitalization strategies in SMEs. It was developed by following the Action Design Research (ADR) method and in cooperation with two medium-sized companies. Rather than adopting highly abstract and complex enterprise architecture frameworks, we suggest creating easy-to-use visualizations of the enterprise architecture, the business ecosystem and related cross-layer dependencies. While transferring the discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) into the context of digital entrepreneurship, we derived four design principles helping to enrich the theoretical body of knowledge in this research area

Technology, governance, and a sustainability model for small and medium-sized towns in Europe

New and cutting-edge technologies causing deep changes in societies, playing the role of game modifiers, and having a significant impact on global markets in small and medium-sized towns in Europe (SMSTEs) are the focus of this research. In this context, an analysis was carried out to identify the main dimensions of a model for promoting innovation in SMSTEs. The literature review on the main dimensions boosting the innovation in SMSTEs and the methodological approach was the application of a survey directed to experts on this issue. The findings from the literature review reflect that technologies, governance, and sustainability dimensions are enablers of SMSTEs’ innovation, and based on the results of the survey, a model was implemented to boost innovation, being this the major add-on of this research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Research Perspective in Enterprise Architecture

The challenges of aligning IT with business triggered the attention towards Enterprise Architecture (EA). Despite the increase interest of academic scholars in EA, there is scarcity of studies that provide an up to date comprehensive research perspective view. The purpose of this study is to examine the research methodologies and theories utilized in EA studies from 2010 to 2016. The study employed Systematic Literature Review (SLR) as method to explore and analyze the literature of EA. The study revealed the research approaches and data collection methods utilized in EA. It shows that case study approach and interviews are the highly used compared to other research approaches and data collection instruments. Furthermore, it pointed out the low employment of theories in EA studies. The study is contributing to the body of knowledge by providing a foundation for novice researchers in the area of EA through detailed discussions of research methodologies and theories which are expected to support them in designing future studies

RE-ARCHITECTING AND RE-ENGINEERING TRADING AND TREASURY SYSTEMS IN THE MERGER OF CHEMICAL BANK AND MANUFACTURERS HANOVER TRUST -- An Interview with Brian Slater, Vice-President, Chemical Bank

This chapter presents an edited transcript of an interview held in August 1993 with Brian Slater, a vice-president in the Global Bank at Chemical Bank. Slater is responsible for the firm's U.S.-based trading and global risk management systems. The interview was conducted in the context of Project 1990s -- the U.S. Council for International Banking's Study on Information Technology Investment and International Banking Performance. The purpose of the discussion was to develop background information on the issues the bank's senior management team faced in merging the trading and treasury functions of Chemical Bank and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. The new Global Bank faces challenges in the areas of global risk management, cost-effective delivery of in formation technology-based products, trading infrastructure application functionality gaps, and human resource management that can be best addressed by a shift to a new paradigm for trading and treasury application software development: reuse of object-oriented representations of the bank's systems. We now turn to the details of the discussion that develops these themes.Information Systems Working Papers Serie