Enterprise modelling framework for dynamic and complex business environment: socio-technical systems perspective

The modern business environment is characterised by dynamism and ambiguity. The causes include global economic change, rapid change requirements, shortened development life cycles and the increasing complexity of information technology and information systems (IT/IS). However, enterprises have been seen as socio-technical systems. The dynamic complex business environment cannot be understood without intensive modelling and simulation. Nevertheless, there is no single description of reality, which has been seen as relative to its context and point of view. Human perception is considered an important determinant for the subjectivist view of reality. Many scholars working in the socio-technical systems and enterprise modelling domains have conceived the holistic sociotechnical systems analysis and design possible using a limited number of procedural and modelling approaches. For instance, the ETHICS and Human-centred design approaches of socio-technical analysis and design, goal-oriented and process-oriented modelling of enterprise modelling perspectives, and the Zachman and DoDAF enterprise architecture frameworks all have limitations that can be improved upon, which have been significantly explained in this thesis. [Continues.

One Defence: one direction? The First Principles Review of Defence

Overview: The recently released report of the First Principles Review of Defence, Creating One Defence, is set to reshape the Defence enterprise over the next few years. This ASPI special report explains the review’s recommendations and analyses the consequences for Defence. It provides three perspectives on the forthcoming reforms: Peter Jennings, ‘One Defence–root causes, risks and values’; Andrew Davies, ‘The capability development life cycle’; Mark Thomson, ‘One Defence in two parts’

Ecosystem-inspired enterprise modelling framework for collaborative and networked manufacturing systems

Rapid changes in the open manufacturing environment are imminent due to the increase of customer demand, global competition, and digital fusion. This has exponentially increased both complexity and uncertainty in the manufacturing landscape, creating serious challenges for competitive enterprises. For enterprises to remain competitive, analysing manufacturing activities and designing systems to address emergent needs, in a timely and efficient manner, is understood to be crucial. However, existing analysis and design approaches adopt a narrow diagnostic focus on either managerial or engineering aspects and neglect to consider the holistic complex behaviour of enterprises in a collaborative manufacturing network (CMN). It has been suggested that reflecting upon ecosystem theory may bring a better understanding of how to analyse the CMN. The research presented in this paper draws on a theoretical discussion with aim to demonstrate a facilitating approach to those analysis and design tasks. This approach was later operationalised using enterprise modelling (EM) techniques in a novel, developed framework that enhanced systematic analysis, design, and business-IT alignment. It is expected that this research view is opening a new field of investigation

Microservice Transition and its Granularity Problem: A Systematic Mapping Study

Microservices have gained wide recognition and acceptance in software industries as an emerging architectural style for autonomic, scalable, and more reliable computing. The transition to microservices has been highly motivated by the need for better alignment of technical design decisions with improving value potentials of architectures. Despite microservices' popularity, research still lacks disciplined understanding of transition and consensus on the principles and activities underlying "micro-ing" architectures. In this paper, we report on a systematic mapping study that consolidates various views, approaches and activities that commonly assist in the transition to microservices. The study aims to provide a better understanding of the transition; it also contributes a working definition of the transition and technical activities underlying it. We term the transition and technical activities leading to microservice architectures as microservitization. We then shed light on a fundamental problem of microservitization: microservice granularity and reasoning about its adaptation as first-class entities. This study reviews state-of-the-art and -practice related to reasoning about microservice granularity; it reviews modelling approaches, aspects considered, guidelines and processes used to reason about microservice granularity. This study identifies opportunities for future research and development related to reasoning about microservice granularity.Comment: 36 pages including references, 6 figures, and 3 table

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Report from GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394: Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World

This report documents the program and the outcomes of GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 16394 "Software Performance Engineering in the DevOps World". The seminar addressed the problem of performance-aware DevOps. Both, DevOps and performance engineering have been growing trends over the past one to two years, in no small part due to the rise in importance of identifying performance anomalies in the operations (Ops) of cloud and big data systems and feeding these back to the development (Dev). However, so far, the research community has treated software engineering, performance engineering, and cloud computing mostly as individual research areas. We aimed to identify cross-community collaboration, and to set the path for long-lasting collaborations towards performance-aware DevOps. The main goal of the seminar was to bring together young researchers (PhD students in a later stage of their PhD, as well as PostDocs or Junior Professors) in the areas of (i) software engineering, (ii) performance engineering, and (iii) cloud computing and big data to present their current research projects, to exchange experience and expertise, to discuss research challenges, and to develop ideas for future collaborations

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

A value-driven method for the design of performance-based services for manufacturing equipment

Industrial services are increasingly becoming more relational and customer-oriented, due to manufacturers' adoption of servitisation approaches and product service system offerings. Challenges remain regarding the effective design and delivery of these new offerings, and the understanding of their actual value for both providers and customers. This work focuses on one specific type of product service systems in the context of manufacturing equipment: result-oriented or performance-based services, which aim at delivering an outcome rather than selling the equipment to the customer. A proposal of a value-driven method for their design that engages the customer in the process is presented. This new method has been applied to a real industrial life setting through an application case, involving the service provider and its customer, and targeting manufacturing equipment within customers' plant. Results indicate the effectiveness of this prescriptive approach. Reported benefits from participants refer to its flexibility, adaptability and applicability for different types of equipment, as well as its potential to help providing a modular service portfolio adequate to equipment specific context and requirements

The impact of blockchain technology on information technology governance

Abstract : This dissertation forms a hypothesis that Blockchain technology is giving rise to a new form of enterprise IT governance. Blockchain is a computational design that first emerged as the technology underpinning the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Despite its use in cryptocurrency, it has an array of different use cases that may significantly impact the global economy. Some areas that Blockchain will affect were never truly re-engineered by the internet era, namely Economics and Governance. This dissertation is a qualitative exploration and analysis of blockchain’s impact on Information Technology Governance. The research unpacks these implications by comparing governance in hierarchical organisations and decentralised autonomous organisations. The primary data is attained through a questionnaire and the secondary data from a case study. The research contains two literature reviews on Blockchain and IT governance. The primary finding of this research reveals that although conventional IT Governance will still be used in the future, fifty percent of the sentiments shared by subject matter experts indicate that unconventional governance will take precedence with decentralised autonomous organisations. This implies that changes in traditional governance frameworks may be required in the future.M.Com. (Information Technology Management