CIMOSA modelling processes

Engineering, integrating and managing complex enterprises requires the understanding, and the ability to partition and simplify their operational complexity. Enterprise modelling supports these requirements by providing means for describing process oriented systems and decomposing those into manageable pieces. However, enterprise modelling requires both a common modelling language and a sufficient modelling methodology. The language provides for common understanding on enterprise models across the industrial community. Modelling methodologies will guide users through the rather complex enterprise modelling tasks. Depending on the skills and the tasks of the modelling person, different methodologies will be implemented in the supporting modelling tool. The paper presents both a methodology for the modelling expert and one for the business user. Whereas the modelling expert will be involved in creating new models, structuring the model contents and developing new modelling components, the business user will use process models for decision support. The latter therefore has a need to modify and adapt enterprise models to represent operational alternatives. A methodology for this type of work has to be based on menus. Menus which are created and maintained by the modelling expert. The business user will mostly work with existing process models. He will evaluate process alternatives and will implement the best solution as the new model of his tasks. This mode of operation will thereby provide for automatic update of the models and will keep the models in sync with the changing reality.     

A method for transforming knowledge discovery metamodel to ArchiMate models

Enterprise architecture has become an important driver to facilitate digital transformation in companies, since it allows to manage IT and business in a holistic and integrated manner by establishing connections among technology concerns and strategical/motivational ones. Enterprise architecture modelling is critical to accurately represent business and their IT assets in combination. This modelling is important when companies start to manage their enterprise architecture, but also when it is remodelled so that the enterprise architecture is realigned in a changing world. Enterprise architecture is commonly modelled by few experts in a manual way, which is error-prone and time-consuming and makes continuous realignment difficult. In contrast, other enterprise architecture modelling proposal automatically analyses some artefacts like source code, databases, services, etc. Previous automated modelling proposals focus on the analysis of individual artefacts with isolated transformations toward ArchiMate or other enterprise architecture notations and/or frameworks. We propose the usage of Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM) to represent all the intermediate information retrieved from information systems’ artefacts, which is then transformed into ArchiMate models. Thus, the core contribution of this paper is the model transformation between KDM and ArchiMate metamodels. The main implication of this proposal is that ArchiMate models are automatically generated from a common knowledge repository. Thereby, the relationships between different-nature artefacts can be exploited to get more complete and accurate enterprise architecture representations.

     

Components of a multi-perspective modeling method for designing and managing IT security systems

Information technology (IT) security design and management are a major concern and substantial challenge for IT management. Today’s highly complex business and technological environments and the need to effectively communicate and justify IT security requirements and controls demand methodical support. The modeling method presented in this paper addresses this demand. The method is based on the assumption that enriched enterprise models integrating technological, business, organizational and strategic aspects provide an effective foundation for developing and managing IT security systems and facilitating communication and understanding between stakeholders. The proposed modeling method for designing and managing IT security in organizations accounts for different perspectives and is based on multi-perspective enterprise modeling. The core components of the method, based on analysis of requirements at different levels of abstraction, are: modeling language concepts specifically designed to address security issues, process models that guide the use of the resulting language, and a modeling environment. The method facilitates elaborate representations of the various aspects of IT security at different levels of abstraction and covers the entire lifecycle of IT security systems. It not only supports multi-perspective requirement analysis and design but also enables monitoring and analysis of IT security at runtime. The presented artifact is evaluated with recourse to a research method that enables the configuration of multi-criteria justification procedures.     

Operational building blocks for business process modelling

The modelling of business processes is a rather complex, difficult and therefore time-consuming process. The efficiency of this process can be significantly enhanced by employing reusable building blocks, rather than to describe business processes from scratch every time a model is being created or modified. The paper describes a reference model which identifies a set of generic building blocks needed for enterprise modelling and identifies their relationships. Further specialisation of these generic building blocks into a profession and/or industry branch oriented set enables business people to model their processes with a minimum requirement on IT know-how. The CIMOSA concepts and language have been selected as the basis for the reference model. Since CIMOSA is one of the basic concepts recognised in the relevant standardisation work, the presented approach also obeys very closely the relevant European and international standards.     

Defining business requirements quickly and accurately

A critical task in an enterprise IT architecture project is to identify and understand key business requirements to ensure that the planned IT systems will fully support and evolve with the business. This article illustrates a more effective approach: leveraging the combined power of value chain, which captures the static business view, and use cases, which animate the business model. In this way, enterprise architects can rapidly define the business's main elements and understand how key systems interact to support business activities.     

面向服务的企业架构

定义了面向服务的企业架构、业务过程和活动类型,分析了企业架构内涵的演化、概念框架和服务视角,并在传统企业建模、IT规划和企业架构的基础上提出了面向服务企业架构及其规划过程,为分析面向服务环境下企业的业务、IT及其一致性提供了公共的理解和交流基础,有助于企业实时监控IT架构运营状况,进而预测、评估和优化企业业务过程性能,实现企业间的业务过程协作建模与执行.     

Managing for Better Business-IT Alignment

Business-IT alignment is a complex and multidimensional problem that remains among the top-10 issues for many organizations. IT investment decisions usually fall to CIOs, and often the temptation is to base the decision to buy solely on superior technology. Clearly, organizations can gain a competitive advantage by such investments, but basing them only on the bells and whistles of a particular platform is foolhardy. Any competitive advantage would vanish as soon as the next platform enters the market, and the technological edge that the organization had briefly gained would evaporate. There are four themes in securing B-IT alignment: the role of IT, the business case, IT management intensity, and IT metrics, IT's role is important because not all organizations use IT in the same manner. The next three themes are natural intersections for business and IT investment. The business case is important because it determines how business and IT collaborate to justify the IT investment. The degree of IT management intensity both during and after the actual IT investment determines the organization's commitment to continuous process improvement. Finally, IT metrics are critical to demonstrate to business executives IT investment's value-generating potential     

Crafting Information Technology Governance

Information Technology (IT) governance has emerged as a fundamental business imperative, and rightfully so, because it is key to realizing IT business value. IT governance describes the distribution of IT decision-making rights and responsibilities among different stakeholders in the enterprise, and defines the procedures and mechanisms for making and monitoring strategic IT decisions. This article presents a holistic view of IT governance, in which structural, process, and relational capabilities are an integral part of an effective IT governance architecture. the article concludes with an IT Governance Assessment Process (ITGAP) model, with which business and IT executives can assess the effectiveness of their company's current IT governance architecture.     

Process thinking in support of system specification and selection

Process thinking supported by enterprise modelling can naturally inform and help structure, the engineering of large scale systems, but this potential has only partially been realised. To facilitate an advance in the application of process thinking, common properties of processes used in Manufacturing Enterprises (MEs) are discussed. This process characterisation is analysed with a view to specifying generic requirements of human and technical systems, against which common properties exhibited by IT systems used in MEs can be contrasted and compared. The paper concludes by illustrating how the combined use of characteristic models of ME processes and proprietary IT systems could lead to improved IT system specification and selection.     

基于战略对应的IT项目组合选择模型

把信息技术项目当作组合来管理可以通过平衡风险和收益来促进企业目标和IT应用的结合,但由于决策信息的不确定性和IT项目目标与企业战略的难以对应,企业面临IT项目组合选择的挑战。构建基于战略对应的IT项目组合选择模型,其中模糊集和模糊层次分析法用来刻画不确定信息和评估IT项目风险、成本及收益,关键成功因素法用来提高IT项目与企业战略的对应,并建立模糊0－1整数规划。利用定性可能性理论把模糊组合选择模型转化为一般可求解的整数规划形式,最后用一个案例说明模型的用法。     

E-MEMO: a method to support the development of customized electronic commerce systems

In many industries structural change through E-Commerce is challenging firms to re-align their strategies as well as re-engineer their business processes with new competitive environments while taking advantage of technological opportunities. This article presents E-MEMO, a method for multi-perspective enterprise modelling with special emphasis on processes and technologies for E-Commerce. It serves to analyse and design corporate information systems that are balanced with a company’s E-Commerce strategy and its organisation. E-MEMO offers specific languages for modelling strategies, business processes, and related resources. In addition to that, it provides a library of reference models including strategy networks to guide strategic planning and models of business processes. In order to further support the implementation of information systems a transformation has been defined that allows for generating workflow schemata from business process models. Since design-oriented research is not predominant in the Information Systems field, the epistemological challenges of the chosen research approach are discussed, too.     

A methodology for business process improvement and IS development

This paper aims at discussing business process modelling and improvement as an essential work to create a successful and competitive enterprise. To achieve this goal, we use a methodology called TAD, which consists of six phases. The first three deal with business process identification, modelling and improvement. The methodology presents a new unique way for business process identification, modelling, and improvement. The last three phases continue with the implementation of the improved business process(es) by developing its information system. The business process “Surgery” is used as an example to show the implementation of the methodology.     

Developing a Theory to Explain the Insights Gained Concerning Information Systems and Business Process Behaviour: The ASSESS-IT Project

Business Process (BP) literature promotes the value of business processes as essential gearwheels that help organisations to reach their goals. Similarly, many process design approaches claim that information technology is a major enabler of business process, a view also shared by the Information Systems (IS) community. Despite this, BP and IS approaches do not provide clear guidance on how to coordinate the design of BP and IS. Nor is any indication of which modelling techniques could be used to detect and design IT opportunities within a business process context given.The ASSESS-IT project examined this domain and proposed the use of simulation techniques to achieve BP and IT integration. The outcome of this project gave indication that depicting the dynamic behaviour of IS could be very helpful for BP modellers to predict the impact that the insertion of IS may have on organisational processes. This paper proposes a simulation framework to depict IS behaviour within a BP simulation model, namely BPS/ISS, and tests it using the case study that was part of the ASSESS-IT project.     

Enhancing enterprise agility by deploying agile drivers, capabilities and providers

Agility is perceived as the dominant competitive vehicle for all organizations in an uncertain and ever-changing business environment. When embracing agility, important questions must be asked. What precisely is agility and how can it be measured? How can one adopt the appropriate agile enablers to develop agility? How can one effectively assist in enhancing agility?For an enterprise to achieve agility, it is critical to create an effective integrated procedure within the business that coordinates and ensures that the agility providers can satisfy the agility capabilities and cope with drivers, ultimately transforming all of these attributes into strategic competitive edges. However, the existing literature on enterprise agility has failed to sufficiently address the relevant perspectives in such analyzes. The relationship matrix in the quality function deployment (QFD) method provides an excellent tool for deploying important concepts and linking processes. This report suggests a new agility development method for dealing with the interface and alignment issues among the agility drivers, capabilities and providers using the QFD relationship matrix and fuzzy logic. A fuzzy agility index (FAI) for an enterprise composed of agility capability ratings and a total relation-weight with agility drivers was developed to measure the agility level of an enterprise. This report also describes how this robust approach has been applied to develop agility in a Taiwanese information technology (IT) product and service enterprise. This development project revealed that the proposed framework and procedures can enhance the agility of an enterprise as well as ensure a competitive edge.     

Querying business process model repositories

Business process management technology is becoming increasingly popular, resulting in more and more business process models being created. Hence, there is a need for these business process models to be managed effectively. For effective business process model management, being able to efficiently query large amount of business process models is essential. For example, it is preferable to find a similar or related model to customize, rather than building a new one from scratch. This would not only save time, but would also be less error-prone and more coherent with the existing models of the enterprise. Querying large amounts of business process models efficiently is also vital during company amalgamation, in which business process models from multiple companies need to be examined and integrated. This paper provides: an overview of the field of querying business process models; a summary of its literature; and a list of challenges (and some potential solutions) that have yet to be addressed. In particular, we aim to compare the differences between querying business process models and general graph querying. We also discuss literature work from graph querying research that can be used when querying business process models.     

商业智能解决方案的研究与应用

信息技术在企业的广泛应用产生了大量的数据,这些数据中包含了对各级别的企业决策者极具价值的信息,但各个业务系统产生的分散、孤立的数据很少能被用于决策分析。要想有效地利用各种应用系统蕴藏的数据来提升企业决策水平,获得更大的竞争优势,实施企业商业智能战略是至关重要的。通过商业智能关键技术的研究给出了一个商业智能较为完整的解决方案,并结合项目实践,重点研究了商业智能在航运企业中的应用。最后给出了某航运企业商业智能系统的应用实例。商业智能关键技术若推广于军用舰艇管理,则具有重大的国防意义。     

Enterprise architecture,IT effectiveness and the mediating role of IT alignment in US hospitals

Despite the possible benefits of implementing healthcare information technologies, successful implementation of effective healthcare information technology is constrained by cultural and regulatory concerns and technical obstacles encountered when establishing or upgrading an organisation's enterprise infrastructure. In this paper, we advance Ross' four‐stage model of enterprise architecture maturity as a valuable IT resource for helping healthcare organisations sustain a competitive advantage. We use partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling to analyse survey data from 164 US hospitals at different stages of EA maturity. Our results provide evidence that enterprise architecture maturity directly influences the effectiveness of hospitals' IT resources for achieving strategic goals. Further, enterprise architecture maturity indirectly influences the effectiveness of IT resources when IT alignment is incorporated as a mediating variable. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice and suggest opportunities for future research.