A solution for actors' viewpoints representation with collaborative product development

As product complexity and marketing competition increase, a collaborative product development is necessary for companies which develop high quality products in short lead-times. To support product actors from different fields, disciplines, and locations, wishing to exchange and share information, the representation of the actors' viewpoints is the underlying requirement of the collaborative product development. The actors' viewpoints approach was designed to provide an organisational framework following the actors' perspectives in the collaboration, and their relationships, could be explicitly gathered and formatted. The approach acknowledges the inevitability of multiple integration of product information as different views, promotes gathering of actors' interests, and encourages retrieved adequate information while providing support for integration through PLM and/or SCM collaboration. In this paper, a solution for neutral viewpoints representation is proposed. The product, process, and organisation information models are seriatim discussed. A series of issues referring to the viewpoints representation are discussed in detail. Based on XML standard, taking cyclone vessel as an example, an application case of part of product information modelling is stated.Comment: ISBN: 2-287-48363-

Domain Architectures as an Instrument to Refine Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is concerned with the fundamental organization of the operating environment of an enterprise. The enterprise architecture is used to plan and control the construction of the systems that populate the operating environment. As the scope covered can be considerable in large enterprises, introducing domain architectures to partition and detail the enterprise architecture is a plausible approach. We formulate prescriptive criteria that consistent domain architectures must meet. By integrating the creation of domain architectures into an extended strategic alignment model we develop a theory that accounts for both the creation, scope-setting and detailing. Based on the creation viewpoint we derive a multi-level classification taxonomy. The primary differentiator is that between domains that are created from business usage viewpoints and those that are created from solution construction viewpoints. Four cases of domain architectures from actual practice are described that illustrate the variety encountered. Domain classifications in all cases conform to the theoretical model. The criteria, the developed theory and the cases have both academic relevance as well as significance for practitioners

Enterprise Architecture Specification Case Study

A graduate course in enterprise architecture had a team project component in which a real-world business case, provided by an industry sponsor, formed the basis of the project charter and the architecture statement of work. The paper aims to share the team project experience on developing the architecture specifications based on the business case of an accountable health care organization. Students collaborated as a team in various roles to develop the architecture specifications for a new business initiative of the sponsoring organization, XYZ ACO. The teaching case describes the case study approach and the architecture approach adopted for the architecture process, and is accompanied by Teaching Case Notes which provide a selection of the models developed by members of the project team towards the architecture specifications. The course started with coverage of enterprise architecture theory, best practices and standards, and the team project gave students the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge and “learn by doing”. Students were challenged to interpret the business case, the project charter and project requirements, and each team member was allocated an architecture viewpoint and a role to play. The Teaching Case presents a summary of the team project and the lessons learned in performing the project