14,664 research outputs found
Towards a flexible service integration through separation of business rules
Driven by dynamic market demands, enterprises are continuously exploring collaborations with others to add value to their services and seize new market opportunities. Achieving enterprise collaboration is facilitated by Enterprise Application Integration and Business-to-Business approaches that employ architectural paradigms like Service Oriented Architecture and incorporate technological advancements in networking and computing. However, flexibility remains a major challenge related to enterprise collaboration. How can changes in demands and opportunities be reflected in collaboration solutions with minimum time and effort and with maximum reuse of existing applications? This paper proposes an approach towards a more flexible integration of enterprise applications in the context of service mediation. We achieve this by combining goal-based, model-driven and serviceoriented approaches. In particular, we pay special attention to the separation of business rules from the business process of the integration solution. Specifying the requirements as goal models, we separate those parts which are more likely to evolve over time in terms of business rules. These business rules are then made executable by exposing them as Web services and incorporating them into the design of the business process.\ud
Thus, should the business rules change, the business process remains unaffected. Finally, this paper also provides an evaluation of the flexibility of our solution in relation to the current work in business process flexibility research
Business Process Innovation using the Process Innovation Laboratory
Most organizations today are required not only to establish effective business processes but they are required to accommodate for changing business conditions at an increasing rate. Many business processes extend beyond the boundary of the enterprise into the supply chain and the information infrastructure therefore is critical. Today nearly every business relies on their Enterprise System (ES) for process integration and the future generations of enterprise systems will increasingly be driven by business process models. Consequently process modeling and improvement will become vital for business process innovation (BPI) in future organizations. There is a significant body of knowledge on various aspect of process innovation, e.g. on conceptual modeling, business processes, supply chains and enterprise systems. Still an overall comprehensive and consistent theoretical framework with guidelines for practical applications has not been identified. The aim of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework for business process innovation in the supply chain based on advanced enterprise systems. The main approach to business process innovation in this context is to create a new methodology for exploring process models and patterns of applications. The paper thus presents a new concept for business process innovation called the process innovation laboratory a.k.a. the Ă-Lab. The Ă-Lab is a comprehensive framework for BPI using advanced enterprise systems. The Ă-Lab is a collaborative workspace for experimenting with process models and an explorative approach to study integrated modeling in a controlled environment. The Ă-Lab facilitates innovation by using an integrated action learning approach to process modeling including contemporary technological, organizational and business perspectivesNo; keywords
Service-oriented coordination platform for technology-enhanced learning
It is currently difficult to coordinate learning processes, not only because multiple stakeholders are involved (such as students, teachers, administrative staff, technical staff), but also because these processes are driven by sophisticated rules (such as rules on how to provide learning material, rules on how to assess studentsâ progress, rules on how to share educational responsibilities). This is one of the reasons for the slow progress in technology-enhanced learning. Consequently, there is a clear demand for technological facilitation of the coordination of learning processes. In this work, we suggest some solution directions that are based on SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture). In particular, we propose a coordination service pattern consistent with SOA and based on requirements that follow from an analysis of both learning processes and potentially useful support technologies. We present the service pattern considering both functional and non-functional issues, and we address policy enforcement as well. Finally, we complement our proposed architecture-level solution directions with an example. The example illustrates our ideas and is also used to identify: (i) a short list of educational IT services; (ii) related non-functional concerns; they will be considered in future work
Controlling Compliance of Collaborative Business Processes through an Integration Platform within an E-government Scenario
Compliance management is gaining increasing interest in inter-organizational service-oriented systems, which are usually supported by integration platforms. Due to their mediation role and capabilities, these platforms constitute a convenient infrastructure for controlling compliance requirements affecting inter-organizational message exchanges, which may be carried out as part of collaborative business processes (CBPs). This paper addresses compliance requirements of CBPs within an e-government scenario, by using a policy-based compliance control solution for integration platforms which was introduced in our previous work
Organizational tools and cultural change in the success of lean transformations: delving into sequence and rhythm
Even if the original seminal authors developed the tools used in lean manufacturing (LM) as inherently culture-dependent, western companies have found a variety of alternatives to implement them. We can simplify them by theoretically identifying two different extreme approaches that in real life are normally combined with diverse intensities: one emphasizes the intrinsically efficient nature of lean tools (lean-toolbox perspective), whereas the other stresses the cultural side (lean-culture perspective). The inappropriate interaction between both approaches has been put at the root of the low success rate of LM in non-Japanese firms. On the one hand, there is no agreement on which sequence to follow regarding managerial tools and cultural change during lean transformation processes. On the other hand, there are also different views on what the correct rhythm should be, since the pace at which organizational tools and cultural transformation occur can also determine the synergies that both can generate. This article synthesizes and compares empirically the different perspectives and tests them in a wide dataset of 1692 North American manufacturing firms. Results suggest that cultural change does not moderate or precede lean transformations, but instead totally mediates the relation between the deployment of tools and enhanced plant performance. These findings not only offer managers a tentative sequence and rhythm in the deployment of lean tools and values but also offer a relevant theoretical byproduct: the integration of Western and Japanese approaches.Ministerio de EconomĂa y Competitividad | Ref. ECO2016â76625âRAgencia Estatal de InvestigaciĂłn | Ref. PID2019-106677GB-I0
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Why project size matters for contract choice in software development outsourcing
The contractual mechanism of software development outsourcing, typically either fixed-price (FP) or time-and-materials (T&M), determines the nature of incentives, risk sharing, and coordination between client and vendor. While software engineering considers project size as crucial for project planning and success, neither economic nor organizational theory considers size per se among the determinants of contract choice. In this paper, we address the gap between the centrality of project size in the software engineering literature and the attention it receives in software contracting research by modeling and testing the association between project size and contract choice. Existing empirical evidence indicates that FP contracts are appropriate for small development efforts whereas T&M contracts are suitable for larger projects, based on the reasoning that cost and schedule are difficult to estimate in larger projects. This prediction that size is directly associated with contract choice is the basis upon which two models are developed. The first model draws on the contracting efficiency approach to hypothesize that the effect of project size on contract choice is mediated by project detail. The second model draws on the contingency approach to software development risk management to hypothesize that the effect of project size on contract choice is moderated by project detail and vendor familiarity. We test these models using a large portfolio of software development contracts entered into by a leading European bank, and the results confirm that both mediation and moderation are at play
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