From Variability to Viability

Socially and industrially globalized environment generates the need for flexibility of enterprises acting, cooperating and preserving their identity in various value and supply chains and socio-technical ecosystems. Achieving required flexibility, ability to cooperate, and ability to care for enterprise identity is possible via use of information systems that can provide a high level of variability of systemically organized information services. The points of variation may reside in types of information provided, in information, data, software, hardware, and network architectures, systems development methods, and in types of chosen information sources in enterprises and their environment. Vigorous models are needed to handle the variability in enterprises in general and in information systems in particular. St. Beer\u27s Viable Systems Model known in organizational cybernetics is one of the candidates for handling and utilizing the variability to achieve enterprise viability via viable information systems

A software architecture for autonomous maintenance scheduling: Scenarios for UK and European Rail

A new era of automation in rail has begun offering developments in the operation and maintenance of industry standard systems. This article documents the development of an architecture and range of scenarios for an autonomous system for rail maintenance planning and scheduling. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) has been utilized to visualize and validate the design of the prototype. A model for information exchange between prototype components and related maintenance planning systems is proposed in this article. Putting forward an architecture and set of usage mode scenarios for the proposed system, this article outlines and validates a viable platform for autonomous planning and scheduling in rail

An architecture for a viable information system : application of “viable system model” in modern systems architecture for the creation of viable information system

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThe idea of present work is born in the context of problems that nowadays organizations facing with their information systems. Modern information systems are monolithic, complex and not ready for the future challenges. But, at the same time, they are playing a key role in a chain of value delivery. Such systems are not fitting perfectly into the businesses where they are employed (not providing all desired outcomes as they are expected by the creators and users of the system). There are three main areas where critical problems can arise in the process of information systems development: modelling, managing, and maintaining information systems. Once an architecture of the system is designed and implemented, the organization faces several problems in maintaining it. It is important to notice that, most of the time, people do not approach ISs problems in a systemic thinking way, but instead in a reductionist way. Which means that no one trying to understand all the interactions between components of the system, which may lead to very interesting and useful findings when studied properly. But the information system it’s just a system, sometimes very complex and monolithic, but it’s still just a system. In this work, Viable System Model will be used to help solve problems described above. The goal of this work is to apply VSM to the Information artifacts to take advantage of all benefits VSM offers. The main outcome from this work will be an architecture for Viable Information System. Systems thinking area will be taken as a basis for the development of the ideas presented in this dissertation. We are proposing a new architecture for modern organizations to use, to take advantage of benefits that VSM must offer. Namely: understanding of complexity, resilience to change, survival to an external environment and ability to exist independently of its external environment. Given that Information System is a system, and, so, obeys laws of general system theory, we could take advantage of using the “Viable System Model” architecture

Multispectral system analysis through modeling and simulation

The design and development of multispectral remote sensor systems and associated information extraction techniques should be optimized under the physical and economic constraints encountered and yet be effective over a wide range of scene and environmental conditions. Direct measurement of the full range of conditions to be encountered can be difficult, time consuming, and costly. Simulation of multispectral data by modeling scene, atmosphere, sensor, and data classifier characteristics is set forth as a viable alternative, particularly when coupled with limited sets of empirical measurements. A multispectral system modeling capability is described. Use of the model is illustrated for several applications - interpretation of remotely sensed data from agricultural and forest scenes, evaluating atmospheric effects in LANDSAT data, examining system design and operational configuration, and development of information extraction techniques

A systems approach to the development of large Geographic Information Systems

Includes bibliography.Large computer-based information systems seldom achieve unqualified success. The major problem is organisational rather than technical, hence to achieve greater success in system implementation greater emphasis must be given to organisational issues than to technology. Current practise, however, tends to focus on technical issues. The aim of this research was to investigate whether a systems-based approach would lead to better understanding of the system development process, and hence form the basis of a methodology which would lead to greater success in computer-based information system implementation. The thesis comprises four parts. In the first part (Chapters 1 - 5) the literature on systems theory in sociology with particular reference to business organisations is reviewed. This review focuses on the historical development of systems thinking, particularly in business management. Beer's Viable System Model, Checkland' s Soft Systems Methodology, and Hoebeke' s ideas on the adoption of new technology provided the main ideas for developing a conceptual model for the information system development process. In the second part (Chapters 6-9) this model is applied to the information system development process to identify the strengths and weaknesses of current methods. Each stage of system development from planning to implementation is considered from a systems perspective. This involves identifying the key stakeholders, and understanding their role in the development process. In the next part three case studies are examined in the light of the theoretical material. The impact of inter-cultural communication is highlighted in these studies as the developers and customers were from· several different cultures. The author was personally involved as project manager and chief consultant in the development of two of the systems described. He was also fully aware of the progress of the other case because that development was being undertaken in the same office. Regular exchanges of views on the progress of each project took place. In the final chapter the conclusions are presented. The main conclusion is that information system implementation must be undertaken within the overall context of the organisation, must be closely aligned with the organisational business processes, and must address the conflicting needs of the different stakeholders. Effective Communication between system developers and system users is crucial to success. A focussed effort is required to achieve effective communication in a multi-cultural environment

Evaluating Generative Ad Hoc Information Retrieval

Recent advances in large language models have enabled the development of viable generative information retrieval systems. A generative retrieval system returns a grounded generated text in response to an information need instead of the traditional document ranking. Quantifying the utility of these types of responses is essential for evaluating generative retrieval systems. As the established evaluation methodology for ranking-based ad hoc retrieval may seem unsuitable for generative retrieval, new approaches for reliable, repeatable, and reproducible experimentation are required. In this paper, we survey the relevant information retrieval and natural language processing literature, identify search tasks and system architectures in generative retrieval, develop a corresponding user model, and study its operationalization. This theoretical analysis provides a foundation and new insights for the evaluation of generative ad hoc retrieval systems.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Conceptual data systems architecture principles for information systems

Information systems alignment with enterprise evolution affects the performance of enterprises. The systems conceptual and data quality, development time and sustainable life cycle management, are issues for enterprise competitiveness. The ability to directly generate enterprise information systems from models has been thought of as a solution to improve on these issues. Model-driven systems have been a research topic for decades. Fundamental principles for a proven model-driven information systems architecture are outlined in this article. Architectural foundation is a separation of user communities conceptual domain from the information technical domain. The users domain is modeled as an information system model in three layers, conceptual data logic model, interface model and user community model. The technical domain is a platform, allowing the modeling and execution of such a model. These principles have been applied in practice and proven viable. Two platforms and applications, which adhere to these principles, are briefly described

The role of functional prototyping within the KADS methodology : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University

Knowledge-based systems have until recent times lacked a clear and complete methodology for their construction. KADS was the result of the early 1980's project (ESPRIT-I P1098) which had the aim of developing a comprehensive, commercially viable methodology for knowledge-based system construction. KADS has subsequently proved to be one of the more popular approaches, focusing on the modelling approach to knowledge based system development. One area of the KADS methodology that has not been examined to any great depth is that of model validation. Model validation is the process of ensuring that a derived model is an accurate representation of the domain from which it has been derived from. The two approaches which have been suggested for this purpose within the KADS framework are that of protocol analysis and functional prototyping. This project seeks to apply the second of these choices, that of functional prototyping, to the model of expertise created by da Silva (1994) for model validation purposes. The problem domain is that of farm management, under an joint program of research between the Computer Science, Information Systems and Agricultural Management departments of Massey University. The project took the model of expertise and created a knowledge representation model in compliance with the selected object-oriented paradigm. After this the creation of a functional prototype in a Microsoft Windows based PC environment took place, using Kappa-PC as the application development tool. The validation took place through a demonstration session to a number of domain experts. Conclusions drawn from the experience gained through the creation and use of the prototype are presented, outlining the reasons why functional prototyping was deemed to be an appropriate method for model validation

Biotechnology policy implementation from a systems perspective

This study utilizes Viable System Model (VSM) in diagnosing one policy implementation call Malaysian Biotechnology policy. The policy implementation is viewed from the innovation theory, which regards research and development (R&D) as the core of innovation commercialization, which in turn become the nucleus for a firm’s growth. Subsequently, the growth of firms as a group can lead to an industry’s development. This study conducted interviews with the agencies involved in the policy implementation and took advantage of the extensive information relating to the agencies that are available in the public domain, by using content analysis as the study’s methodology. This study enhances the understanding on the full use of VSM; it provides policy makers and implementers a guide in improving existing systems or designing new ones, while researchers are afforded an applicable theoretical conceptualization from a systems thinking perspective

Factors Influencing the Efficacy of Agile Usage

Agile techniques that utilize iterative development are broadly used in various industry projects as a lightweight development technique which can satisfy the continuous changes of requirements. Short repetitions are used that are required for efficient product delivery. Traditional and old software development methods are not much efficient and effective to control the rapid change in requirements. Despite the benefits of Agile, criticism on agile methodology states that it couldn’t succeed to pay attention to architectural and design issues and therefore is bound to produce small design-decisions. The past decade has observed numerous changes in systems development with many organizations accepting agile techniques as a viable methodology for developing systems. An increase in the number of research studies reveals the growing demand and acceptance of agile methodologies. While most research has focused on acceptance rate and adaptation of agile practices, there is very limited knowledge of their post-adoption usage and incorporation within organizations. Several factors explain the effective usage of agile methodologies. A combination of previous research in Agile Methodologies, Diffusion of Innovations, Information Systems implementation, and Systems Development has been carried out to develop a research model that identifies the main factors relevant to the propagation and effective usage of agile methodologies in organizations