Mixing Systems Engineering and Enterprise Modelling principles to formalize a SE processes deployment approach in industry

12 pagesInternational audienceSystems Engineering (SE) is a tried and tested methodological approach to design and test new products. It acts as a modelbased engineering approach and promotes for this purpose a set of standardized collaborative processes, modelling languages and frameworks. In a complementary way, Enterprise Modelling (EM) provides concepts, techniques and means to model businesses along with their processes. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for the deployment of SE processes considering interoperability and building bridges between SE and EM. An application case is given illustrating the definition of the stakeholder requirements definition process defined in the ISO 15288:2008

Interoperability Assessment in the Deployment of Technical Processes in Industry

6 pagesInternational audienceIncreasing competition on markets induces a vital need for companies to improve their efficiency and reactivity. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage their processes while paying a special attention on the abilities of the resources involved. Particularly, the interoperability of the latter is considered in this article as a challenge conditioning the success of the deployment. Consequently, this paper presents a mean to assess interoperability of the resources involved in a process during all its life cycle

Customizable Interoperability Assessment Methodology To Support Technical Processes Deployment In Large Companies

International audienceIncreasing competition on markets induces a vital need for companies to improve their efficiency and reactivity. For this, a solution is to deploy, improve and manage their processes while paying a special attention on the abilities of the resources those involve. Particularly, the interoperability of the latter is considered in this article as a challenge conditioning the success of the deployment. Consequently, this paper presents a methodology to assess interoperability of people, material resources and organisation units involved or that could be involved in a process, all along the deployment effort. This methodology is usable for prevention, detection and correction of interoperability problems

Conversational Process Modelling: State of the Art, Applications, and Implications in Practice

Chatbots such as ChatGPT have caused a tremendous hype lately. For BPM applications, it is often not clear how to apply chatbots to generate business value. Hence, this work aims at the systematic analysis of existing chatbots for their support of conversational process modelling as process-oriented capability. Application scenarios are identified along the process life cycle. Then a systematic literature review on conversational process modelling is performed. The resulting taxonomy serves as input for the identification of application scenarios for conversational process modelling, including paraphrasing and improvement of process descriptions. The application scenarios are evaluated for existing chatbots based on a real-world test set from the higher education domain. It contains process descriptions as well as corresponding process models, together with an assessment of the model quality. Based on the literature and application scenario analyses, recommendations for the usage (practical implications) and further development (research directions) of conversational process modelling are derived

Kuinka soveltaa teknologiaan, tietoon ja tuotantoon liittyvän päätöksenteon malleja strategisesti kestävään resurssien allokointiin?

Technology is a primary source of competitive advantage that can help a firm to outperform its competitors if the firm’s technology strategy is aligned with its overall business strategy. Because firms’ resources are limited and technology is usually a resource-intensive investment, finding suitable technology in which to invest is of paramount concern to strategists. This doctoral thesis focuses on tackling this prioritization problem. This dissertation is the combination of four publications that examine the topic above. The outcome of this dissertation is the proposal of a technique that facilitates the technology and knowledge decision-making process in operations management, with consideration given to the notion of competitive advantage. The proposed technique considers both external factors (e.g., product life cycle) and internal factors (e.g., firms’ resources) that affect technology decisions. The research considers three types of technology in firms based on different phases of the product life cycle: basic, core and spearhead. This research applies the sand cone approach to technology development and investment. This dissertation extends existing knowledge of the resource-based view, competitive advantage and the sand cone model, all of which serve as the foundation of the studies featured in the dissertation. The findings of this dissertation help managers in the following areas: (1) to find the right choice of technology in which to invest, (2) to outsource the technology and knowledge requirement, (3) to detect the potential development areas regarding their firms’ competitive priorities and (4) to evaluate the potential of advanced technology in bringing competitive advantage and in changing the rules of competition.Teknologia tuo kilpailuetua, joka voi auttaa yritystä menestymään kilpailijoitaan paremmin, jos yrityksen teknologiastrategia on yhdenmukainen sen yleisen liiketoimintastrategian kanssa. Koska yritysten resurssit ovat rajalliset ja teknologia on yleensä resursseja vaativa investointi, on sopivan teknologian löytäminen ensisijaista strategisessa päätöksenteossa. Väitöskirja keskittyykin tämän priorisointiongelman ratkaisemiseen. Väitöstutkimus on yhdistelmä neljästä edellä aihetta tarkastelevasta julkaisusta. Väitöskirjan tuloksena on ehdotus tekniikasta, joka helpottaa teknologiaan ja osaamiseen liittyvää päätöksentekoprosessia toiminnan johtamisessa ottaen huomioon myös kilpailuedun. Ehdotetussa tekniikassa otetaan huomioon sekä ulkoiset tekijät (kuten tuotteen elinkaari) että sisäiset tekijät (esimerkiksi yritysten resurssit), jotka vaikuttavat teknologiapäätöksiin. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kolmea erityyppistä teknologiaa yrityksissä. Ne perustuvat tuotteen elinkaaren eri vaiheisiin: perusteknologia, ydinteknologia ja keihäänkärkiteknologia. Tämä tutkimus soveltaa hiekkakakun nimellä tunnettua pyramidimallia teknologian kehittämiseen ja investointeihin. Väitöskirja laajentaa aiempaa tietämystä resurssipohjaisesta tarkastelusta, kilpailuedusta ja hiekkakakkumallista, jotka luovat perustan kaikille väitöskirjan tutkimuksille. Väitöskirjan tulokset auttavat johtajia seuraavilla alueilla: (1) investoitavan teknologian löytäminen (2) teknologian ja vaadittavan osaamisen ostopäätös (3) yritysten kilpailuetuihin liittyvien mahdollisten kehitysalueiden löytäminen (4) sen arvioiminen, millaisia mahdollisuuksia edistyneellä teknologialla on tuottaa kilpailuetua ja muuttaa kilpailun sääntöjä.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

An agile information flow consolidator for delivery of quality software projects: technological perspective from a South African start-up

In today’s knowledge-based economy, modern organisations understand the importance of technology in their quest to be considered global leaders. South African markets like others worldwide are regularly flooded with the latest technology trends which can complicate the acquisition, use, management and maintenance of software. To achieve a competitive edge, companies tend to leverage agile methods with the best possible combination of innovative supporting tools as a key differentiator. Software technology firms are in this light faced with determining how to leverage technology and efficient development processes for them to consistently deliver quality software projects and solutions to their customer base. Previous studies have discussed the importance of software development processes from a project management perspective. African academia has immensely contributed in terms of software development and project management research which has focused on modern frameworks, methodologies as well as project management techniques. While the current research continues with this tradition by presenting the pertinence of modern agile methodologies, it additionally further describes modern agile development processes tailored in a sub-Saharan context. The study also aims novelty by showing how innovative sometimes disruptive technology tools can contribute to producing African software solutions to African problems. To this end, the thesis contains an experimental case study where a web portal is prototyped to assist firms with the management of agile project management and engineering related activities. Literature review, semi-structure interviews as well as direct observations from the industry use case are used as data sources. Underpinned by an Activity Theory analytical framework, the qualitative data is analysed by leveraging content and thematic oriented techniques. This study aims to contribute to software engineering as well as the information systems body of knowledge in general. The research hence ambitions to propose a practical framework to promote the delivery of quality software projects and products. For this thesis, such a framework was designed around an information system which helps organizations better manage agile project management and engineering related activities.Information SciencePh. D. (Information Systems

Development of Earthwork Ontology and its Application

ABSTRACT Development of Earthwork Ontology and its Application Alhusain Mohamed Taher Concordia University, 2021 In a typical construction project, a significant amount of information is communicated to various stakeholders at different phases of the project lifecycle. The communication of this information tends to be informal and ad-hoc in the majority of the cases, which makes it more susceptible to loss of information or misinterpretation. Earthwork operations, which are one of the main operations of construction projects, also struggle with the challenge of effective information communication. There is an apparent shortcoming regarding the unified structure for data and information exchange in this domain. The existing models and ontologies do not address the explicit semantic representation of earthwork operations. Accordingly, there is a need for a knowledge model to formalize the efficient communication of information. An ontological model can be used to organize the domain knowledge so that it can be utilized and reused by the stakeholders. The primary purpose of this study is to develop an ontology for the earthwork domain that can be used to create the semantics-based integration method to support the communications between the different disciplines and stakeholders in the earthwork domain. Accordingly, the objectives of this study are: (1) To extract the explicit and tacit knowledge required for the earthwork domain; (2) To formalize the extracted knowledge by developing the Earthwork Ontology (EW-Onto); (3) To develop methods for linking and coupling EW-onto with other existing relevant ontologies in the construction domain to extend its application for safety and productivity; and (4) To evaluate the integrated ontology (IEW-Onto) and apply the ontological model in supporting application development, which is a Multi-Agent System (MAS) in the earthwork domain. In the proposed framework, the ontology integrates the different components in the domain. The extended earthwork ontology (called Integrated Earthwork Ontology or IEW-Onto) is composed of the concepts, relationships, and axioms in this domain and can represent the semantic values of the entities and the relationships. Each entity is linked with other entities with different types of relationships, such as is-a, part-of, operates, and coordinates. IEW-Onto benefits from the available ontologies in the construction domain, and links with other ontologies, such as sensor and soil ontologies. IEW-Onto is used to build the earthwork operation model as a pattern to represent the operations and processes sequences, which provide a reusable pattern for several applications such as MAS. The developed MAS can cope with the complexity of earthwork operations’ communication at the fleet level and addresses safety issues. In the MAS, every piece of equipment is represented by a dedicated computer agent. This Ontology-based MAS is expected to improve the safety of earthwork operations. Different evaluation methods were used to evaluate EW-Onto and IEW-Onto, including checking consistency, survey, data-driven and application-based validations. The evaluation results show that both ontologies have consistency and provide a high level of clarity, richness, comprehensiveness, interpretability, and effectiveness of the presented knowledge in the earthwork domain

Systems thinking and simulation to help IT/Software professionals to visualize knowledge assets evolution according to digital solutions implementation

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorThis doctoral thesis presents the SIPAC-framework, a methodological proposal created to systemically guide and help software engineers and information technology professionals in the process of proposing a customized technological solution, specifically oriented to propose software or IT solutions that provides business value supported on the status of intangible knowledge assets of organizations, and from this, drive the achievement of the strategic goals that define the organizational operation. To achieve this, the SIPAC-framework comprises three layers clearly differentiated but intimately interrelated and co-dependent on each other: a methodological layer, a mechanisms layer and a technological layer inclusive of the technological artifacts to be used. 1. The methodological layer comprises the SIPAC methodology itself, inspired by Peter Checkland's soft systems approach, but adapted to, from an engineering point of view, addressing the situation given by the underlying knowledge of an organization, which it is usually unstructured and disordered, and whose understanding fits to be addressed as a complex problem. The SIPAC-framework guides the professional in the process of identifying such knowledge, structuring it in knowledge assets, organizing such assets according to the identity of the organization, characterizing them according to their quality and the impact they have in achieving the strategic objectives, exploiting them to propose an appropriate technological solution and envisaging possible future scenarios based on what can happen to them as a consequence of the decision making about the technological solution to be implemented. 2. The mechanisms layer comprises the constructs necessary to be able to carry out the subjacent activities of the methodological layer, mainly a model of identification and valuation of intangible knowledge assets, a model of characterization of the assets according to their quality and impact, a Markovian model of prediction of the re-characterization of intangible knowledge assets, and an instance-based learning model implementation of decisions on the implementation of technological solutions. 3. The technological layer constitutes the artifacts to be used during the deployment of the methodology to support its methodological processes. In detail, this layer presents an instrument for collecting information on the knowledge of a company and its structuring into knowledge assets, a web application for the management of such information through a database, an agent-based model that implements both the automatic characterization of the knowledge assets from the information stored in the database, as well as the simulation and prediction of the behavior of said assets as a product of the decisions made regarding technological implementations. The SIPAC framework has been used in a total of 11 small and medium enterprises, by means of teams of 2-4 software engineers each, who have been in charge of doing the deployment in two different time stages: an initial audit carried out in the pre-project phase and prior to the decision of technological implementation; and an audit carried out after the implementation of the technological solution. The interaction of said professionals with the interested parties by the companies (stakeholders) has been discontinuous, limited to specific audits, interviews and validations on the information and models built. This work has derived in the methodological proposal that constitutes the SIPAC-framework, with its mechanisms and technological artefacts, and whose impact can be evidenced in several aspects: • The effective elicitation and characterization of organizational knowledge of the participating companies. • The success of the goals-aligned digital solution implementation proposals, which is evidenced by the improvement in organizational knowledge assets’ state. • The effective predictive power of the SIPAC-framework’s simulation module. • The satisfaction of software engineers and IT professionals by both the process of d • The improvement of the profession of software engineers and professionals of information and communication technologies, by providing them with an innovative approach that leads them to demonstrate to their clients the knowledge they have, in what state they are, how they can improve and what can happen if they decide to improve it. • The emergence of organizational information that is traditionally hidden and incomprehensible, usually reserved for its management by expensive consultants and the experience of a few; all at a minimum cost, maximizing the visualization of the information and minimizing the complexity of its interpretation. • This thesis is a starting point for the development of the body of knowledge on the valuation of knowledge assets in technological environments as a tool to achieve the strategic goal of an organization. In addition, this work leaves open the way for the future development of decision-making models based on value, as well as the evolution of the presented model, ideally in a single patentable technological device.eploying the methodology and the results obtained.Esta tesis doctoral presenta SIPAC-framework, una propuesta metodológica creada para sistémicamente guiar y ayudar a los ingenieros de software y profesionales de las tecnologías de la información en el proceso de proponer una solución tecnológica customizada, orientada a proporcionar valor a las organizaciones y soportada en los activos intangibles de conocimiento de las organizaciones, de manera que se pueda, a partir de esto, impulsar la consecución de los objetivos estratégicos que dirigen su funcionamiento. Para conseguir esto, el SIPAC-framework comprende tres capas claramente diferenciadas, pero íntimamente interrelacionadas y codependientes entre sí: una capa metodológica, una capa de mecanismos y una capa tecnológica o de artefactos tecnológicos de soporte a ser usados. 1. La capa metodológica comprende la metodología SIPAC en sí misma, inspirada en el enfoque de sistemas blandos de Peter Checkland, pero adaptada a, desde un punto de vista ingenieril, abordar la situación dada por el conocimiento subyacente en una organización, el cual usualmente está desestructurado y desordenado, y cuya comprensión debe ser abordada como un problema complejo. SIPAC-framework guía al profesional en el proceso de identificar tal conocimiento, estructurarlo en activos de conocimiento, organizarlos en función de la identidad de la organización, caracterizarlos en función de su calidad y el impacto que estos tienen en la consecución de los objetivos estratégicos, explotarlos para proponer una adecuada solución tecnológica y visualizar posibles escenarios futuros en función de lo que puede pasar con ellos como consecuencia de la toma de decisiones sobre la solución tecnológica a implementar. 2. La capa de mecanismos comprende los constructos conceptuales necesarios para poder llevar a cabo las actividades de la capa metodológica, principalmente un modelo de identificación y valoración de activos intangibles de conocimiento, un modelo de caracterización de los activos en función de su calidad e impacto, un modelo markoviano de predicción de la re-caracterización de activos intangibles de conocimiento, y una implementación del modelo basado en instancias (IBL-model) sobre las decisiones estratégicas con respecto a la implementación de soluciones tecnológicas. 3. La capa tecnológica se constituye por los artefactos utilizados durante el despliegue de la metodología para soportar sus procesos. En detalle, esta capa presenta un instrumento de recolección de información sobre el conocimiento de una empresa y su estructuración en activos de conocimiento, un aplicativo web para la gestión de dicha información por medio de una base de datos, un modelo basado en agentes que implementa tanto la caracterización automática de los activos de conocimiento a partir de la información almacenada en la base de datos, como la simulación y predicción del comportamiento de dichos activos como producto de las decisiones de implementación tecnológica tomadas. El SIPAC-framework se ha usado en un total de 11 pequeñas y medianas empresas, por medio de equipos de entre 2 y 4 profesionales de la ingeniería del software cada uno, que han estado a cargo de hacer el despliegue metodológico en dos estadios de tiempo diferentes: una auditoría inicial llevada a cabo en la fase de pre-proyecto y con anterioridad a la decisión de implementación tecnológica; y una auditoría llevada a cabo con posterioridad a la implementación de la solución tecnológica. La interacción de dichos profesionales con los interesados por parte de las empresas ha sido discontinua, limitándose a auditorías concretas, entrevistas y validaciones sobre la información y modelos construidos. Este trabajo ha derivado en la propuesta metodológica que constituye el SIPAC-framework, con sus mecanismos y artefactos tecnológicos, y cuyo impacto se puede ver en varios aspectos: • La elicitación y caracterización efectiva del conocimiento organizativo de las empresas participantes. • El éxito que han tenido las propuestas de implementación de solución tecnológica alineadas con los objetivos, lo que se evidencia por la mejora en el estado de los activos organizativos de conocimiento. • El efectivo poder predictivo del módulo de simulación del SIPAC-framework. • La satisfacción de los ingenieros de software y los profesionales de TI, tanto por el proceso de implementación de la metodología como por los resultados obtenidos. • La mejora de la profesión de los ingenieros de software y profesionales de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, al dotarles de un enfoque innovador que les conduce a evidenciar ante sus clientes el conocimiento que tienen, en qué estado se encuentra, cómo lo pueden mejorar y lo que puede ocurrir si deciden mejorarlo. • La emergencia de información organizativa que tradicionalmente está oculta e incomprensible, usualmente reservada a costosas consultoras y a la experiencia de unos pocos; todo a un coste mínimo, maximizando la visualización de la información y minimizando la complejidad de su interpretación. Esta tesis es un punto de partida para el desarrollo de la base de conocimiento sobre la valoración de activos de conocimiento en entornos tecnológicos como herramienta para conseguir los objetivos estratégicos de una organización. Además, este trabajo deja abierto el camino para el futuro desarrollo de modelos de toma de decisiones basados en el valor, así como la evolución del modelo presentado, idealmente en un solo artefacto tecnológico patentable.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Raúl Álvaro Espejo Ballivian.- Secretario: José María Álvarez Rodríguez.- Vocal: Stefano Armeni

Emerging Informatics

The book on emerging informatics brings together the new concepts and applications that will help define and outline problem solving methods and features in designing business and human systems. It covers international aspects of information systems design in which many relevant technologies are introduced for the welfare of human and business systems. This initiative can be viewed as an emergent area of informatics that helps better conceptualise and design new world-class solutions. The book provides four flexible sections that accommodate total of fourteen chapters. The section specifies learning contexts in emerging fields. Each chapter presents a clear basis through the problem conception and its applicable technological solutions. I hope this will help further exploration of knowledge in the informatics discipline