Information systems framework for enterprise agility

Modern day enterprises operate and transact in an increasingly dynamic business environment. As a result, they are vulnerable to spontaneous changes and uncertainties. These usually reduce effectiveness and optimal performances in enterprises, and can have negative impacts such as loss of competitiveness, and bankruptcy. Enterprise agility, i.e., the ability of enterprises to respond to changes, is a core imperative for effective change management. Yet, it is challenging, difficult to achieve, and a major concern for corporate executives. Enterprises would thus require novel approaches to manage changes and enhance agility. In order to facility or achieve enterprise agility, it would be necessary and vital to develop frameworks or processes that can support effective change management. Such frameworks or processes should include techniques for modelling enterprises changes explicitly, so as to enhance the understanding of how changes relate to or affect enterprises. In addition, there should be techniques for deriving the elements of an enterprise, e.g., business process and data entities, that are required to adapt a given enterprise change. However, concepts, constructs, and techniques for representing changes are often neglected, if available at all, in the existing enterprise modelling approaches such as TOGAF and ZACHMAN. This contributes to the difficulty in applying the existing enterprise modelling approaches to enhance enterprise agility and effective change management. The work described in this thesis provides a novel approach for supporting enterprise agility and change management. Therefore, this thesis contributes a conceptual process or framework for representing enterprise changes, and deriving enterprise elements such as data entity, business goal, and business process required to adapt a given change. Other contributions made by this approach include a novel conceptual modelling language for representing enterprise changes, an enterprise modelling language, and a set of procedures and rules that can be used to derive the new domain elements required to adapt changes. An industry case study has been used to test the utility of this framework. The results obtained from this case study shows that this framework supports enterprise agility and change management in a number of ways

A Case Study Of E-Supply Chain & Business Process Reengineering Of A Semiconductor Company In Malaysia

Penglibatan e-perniagaan dalam rantaian bekalan telah mewujudkan e-rantaian bekalan yang baru (e-SC) di firma-firma tempatan dan global. Due to globalization and advancement in information technology (IT), companies adopt best practices in e-business and supply chain management to be globally competitive as both are realities and prospects in 21st century

Service bundling opportunities for a 3PL in the value network

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Originally written by two authors for two different degrees: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program (Mr. Chew); and, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program (Mr. de Graeve). Mr. Chew graduated June 2003; Mr. de Graeve did not graduate until June 2004, and submitted the following thesis with title: Framework for the study of governance in the supply networksIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 96-99).The 3PL industry is currently experiencing rapid growth, high fragmentation and intense competition. In order to survive and stay relevant going forward 3PLs need to re-assess their current position in the value network and develop a clear strategy to position themselves as strategic business partners for the long term. This thesis first explores the supply chain challenges and needs of the major stakeholders in the value network. It then tries to create a roadmap identifying the major opportunities which 3PLs should optimize in order to become true value-added service providers and long term strategic business partners in the value network.by Chee Mun Chew & Denis de Graeve.S.M.M.O.T

Enhancing tourism through viticulture enterprises in Douro Region: The Inov@Douro model

This paper describes a business and technological model proposal, known as Inov@Douro, intended to support and to promote competitive and sustained precision agriculture practices in the Portuguese Douro Region. Our approach is based on a distributed cooperative network, tailored to meet the specific needs of viticulture enterprises which also explore tourism as a valuable national and international business source. We present the Inov@Douro model from the knowledge generation point-of-view, intended to support the multidisciplinary concept of a cooperation approach among regional partners. This model aims to represent a new working style for this unique region. As a guideline to attain the implementation of such a model, information technology and infrastructures tools are discussed in order to promote precision agriculture practices while giving valuable and dynamic tourist information to the general public

Real-Time Value Chain Management

Value creation in the digital economy of the 21st century is characterized by the instantaneous processing and coordination of value chain activities across extended enterprises. Value chain management has evolved from automation and integration to the optimization of the entire value chain in real-time. This paper examines the real-time characteristics for each of the activities in the demand and supply value chains. A model is presented for real-time value chain management enabled by technologies in e-business, knowledge management and business intelligence

Empirical modelling for participative business process reengineering

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce a new broad approach to computing - Empirical Modelling (EM) - and to propose a way of applying this approach for system development so as to avoid the limitations of conventional approaches and integrate system development with business process reengineering (BPR). Based on the concepts of agency, observable and dependency, EM is an experiencebased approach to modelling with computers in which the modeller interacts with an artefact through continuous observations and experiments. It is a natural way of working for business process modelling because the modeller is involved in, and takes account of, the real world context. It is also adaptable to a rapidly changing environment as the computer-based models serve as creative artefacts with which the modeller can interact in a situated and open-ended manner. This thesis motivates and illustrates the EM approach to new concepts of participative BPR and participative process modelling. That is, different groups of people, with different perceptions, competencies and requirements, can be involved during the process of system development and BPR, rather than just being involved at an early stage. This concept aims to address the well-known high failure rate of BPR. A framework SPORE (situated process of requirements engineering), which has been proposed to guide the process of cultivating requirements in a situated manner, is extended to participative BPR (i.e. to support many users in a distributed environment). Two levels of modelling are proposed for the integration of contextual understanding and system development. A comparison between EM and object-orientation is also provided to give insight into how EM differs from current methodologies and to point out the potential of EM in system development and BPR. The ISMs (interactive situation models), built using the principles and tools of EM, are used to form artefacts during the modelling process. A warehouse and logistics management system is taken as an illustrative case study for applying this framework

Ubiquitous Computing – an Application Domain for Business Intelligence in the Cloud?

A number of IT providers have introduced web-based services for management support that are discussed under the label“Business Intelligence (BI) in the Cloud”. It has been argued that these Cloud products might become valuable complementsto on-premise enterprise BI infrastructures by allowing a flexible addition of sizeable components, tools or – in selected areas– complete solutions. In this publication, it is discussed in how far a Ubiquitous Computing setting based on technologies likeradio frequency identification (RFID) or sensor technology could become a relevant application domain for Cloud-BI”. Themain insights come from a literature review, a series of expert interviews on BI and Cloud Computing, and a case on spareparts logistics. The results indicate that the addressed domain indeed comes with business potential and highlight the need forfurther design oriented research