The strategy and realization of enterprise integration

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Information Technology.In recent years we have experienced exponential growth in business innovation. emerging technology, and integration complexity. With this unprecedented growth, the priority of enterprise integration has shifted from patching solutions to the governance of agility. Enterprise integration mainly deals with interoperability between virtual and physical worlds, which is thorny by its very nature. In order to cope with rising complexity, interference coherence between business, service. and physical components is crucial. Instead of consolidation from fragmentation, an iteration approach is taken in driving concept and strategy into realization. The empirical statistics indicate that the anatomy of ontological research is essential for producing an overview of interoperability. The author's numerous research projects demonstrate a number of factors critical in generating higher productivity and lower risk. These factors include a higher visibility of atomic elements. a well-specified service, and a precise architectural alignment. By taking these successful factors into realization, this thesis proposes enterprise vertical integration, employing a three-step strategy of componentization, transformation, and virtualization. Componentization derives an ontology of atomic elements for the service-based foundation. In transformation. service components are produced from these raw elements, using a multi-discipline and three-dimensional approach to achieve component synthesis. The final step, virtualization, is the objective of enterprise integration. Virtualization establishes the enterprise skeleton and achieves a common-service mainstream in the industry. Experiential evidence indicates that this higher-level, three-step approach works effectively in minimizing risk and increasing productivity. There is particular benefit for projects of higher complexity and larger scale. Given the incessant business change inherent in our chaotic new age of computing, the three-step approach relies on a new framework to streamline realization and cope with project complexity. A Method, Evaluation, Techniques, and Application (META) framework addresses the interference between virtual and physical layers. In this initial process it develops component validation, analysis processes, and synthesis techniques for service transformation. It then develops service components and common services for service virtualization. This thesis proposes a four-pillared approach to support the META framework. It also proposes sub-area concepts such as "pattern" and "state" to enhance the capability of the framework before moving it into the industry mainstream. This thesis distinguishes itself from existing literature in that very few studies in this field address real enterprise-scale integration. None of the reviewed literature copes with the fundamental work of enterprise issues such as ontological research or high-level strategy as proposed by this thesis

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Information standards to support application and enterprise interoperability for the smart grid

Copyright @ 2012 IEEE.Current changes in the European electricity industry are driven by regulatory directives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as replacing aged infrastructure and maintaining energy security. There is a wide acceptance of the requirement for smarter grids to support such changes and accommodate variable injections from renewable energy sources. However the design templates are still emerging to manage the level of information required to meet challenges such as balancing, planning and market dynamics under this new paradigm. While secure and scalable cloud computing architectures may contribute to supporting the informatics challenges of the smart grid, this paper focuses on the essential need for business alignment with standardised information models such as the IEC Common Information Model (CIM), to leverage data value and control system interoperability. In this paper we present details of use cases being considered by National Grid, the GB transmission system operator for information interoperability in pan-network system management and planning.This study is financially supported by the National Grid, UK

Construction informatics in Turkey: strategic role of ICT and future research directions

Construction Informatics deals with subjects ranging from strategic management of ICTs to interoperability and information integration in the construction industry. Studies on defining research directions for Construction Informatics have a history over 20 years. The recent studies in the area highlight the priority themes for Construction Informatics research as interoperability, collaboration support, intelligent sites and knowledge sharing. In parallel, today it is widely accepted in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry that ICT is becoming a strategic asset for any organisation to deliver business improvement and achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, traditionally the AEC industry has approached investing in ICT with a lack of strategic focus and low level of priority to the business. This paper presents a recent study from Turkey that is focused on two themes. The first theme investigates the strategic role of ICT implementations from an industrial perspective, and explores if organisations within the AEC industry view ICT as a strategic resource for their business practice. The second theme investigates the ‘perspective of academia’ in terms of future research directions of Construction Informatics. The results of the industrial study indicates that ICT is seen as a value-adding resource, but a shift towards the recognition of the importance of ICT in terms of value adding in winning work and achieving strategic competitive advantage is observed. On the other hand, ICT Training is found to be the theme of highest priority from the academia point of view

Integrating the Educational Enterprise

Learning management systems are being used in today's educational climate without much thought to current pedagogies and interoperability. The Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) provides a set of Open Service Interface Definitions (OSID's) that address interoperability in the educational enterprise while remaining pedagogically flexible. Web Services are suggested as a suitable middleware to use when integrating the enterprise services using OKI. A possible integration strategy is suggested for the learning management system WebStation 3 to demonstrate OKI

Practitioner requirements for integrated Knowledge-Based Engineering in Product Lifecycle Management.

The effective management of knowledge as capital is considered essential to the success of engineering product/service systems. As Knowledge Management (KM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) practice gain industrial adoption, the question of functional overlaps between both the approaches becomes evident. This article explores the interoperability between PLM and Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) as a strategy for engineering KM. The opinion of key KBE/PLM practitioners are systematically captured and analysed. A set of ranked business functionalities to be fulfiled by the KBE/PLM systems integration is elicited. The article provides insights for the researchers and the practitioners playing both the user and development roles on the future needs for knowledge systems based on PLM

A Product Oriented Modelling Concept: Holons for systems synchronisation and interoperability

Nowadays, enterprises are confronted to growing needs for traceability, product genealogy and product life cycle management. To meet those needs, the enterprise and applications in the enterprise environment have to manage flows of information that relate to flows of material and that are managed in shop floor level. Nevertheless, throughout product lifecycle coordination needs to be established between reality in the physical world (physical view) and the virtual world handled by manufacturing information systems (informational view). This paper presents the "Holon" modelling concept as a means for the synchronisation of both physical view and informational views. Afterwards, we show how the concept of holon can play a major role in ensuring interoperability in the enterprise context

ECONOMIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEROPERABILITY

In this article we define and describe the economic information interoperability problemand how it affects today’s enterprises in the context of globalization and current ICT development, thecurrently used solutions found in the integration and interoperability of information systems literature(EDI, Web Services, ebXML, RosettaNet, XBRL), the main research activities done so far in the field ofEnterprise Interoperability and the observed trends in the evolution of standard solutions.interoperability problem; economic information system; standard; enterprise interoperability