Contributing to business improvement

Performance measurement systems need to be designed holistically, ensuring they are in line with, and represent, business objectives. The authors challenge some commonly held assumptions about business performance measures. To start one thinking about one's business planning, scheduling and control (PSC) process in a new way, we have provided a PSC process health-check. This is a basic checklist to provide one with pointers to begin to uncover the hidden potential in one's PSC process and to recognise sources for potential improvement. To support this, we also outline a number of modelling tools that will help to visualise and represent the workings of your business PSC process     

What's going on? [business activity monitoring]

Modern technology is providing organisations with the thrilling opportunity to inject a revolutionary and unprecedented level of sophistication and control into their business analysis and planning. The old days when these functions were cumbersome, clumsy back-office functions that required many days - or weeks - to yield useful and insightful information are over. Organisations that have the good sense to implement new, state-of-the-art business analysis and planning systems are creating an enormously important in-house resource that can provide comprehensive and detailed information about every aspect of the organisation's activities, and also facilitate a rapid response to new, unforeseen, opportunities or challenges. The research organisation the Gartner Group has crystallised the objectives of business analysis and planning today into the phrase 'business activity monitoring' (BAM). This phrase aptly sums up the purpose of the business planning task: to monitor an organisations activity in every sense and to develop an understanding of what is happening now with the organisation, where the organisation is going and where the major opportunities for increased profitability lie within it. The author shows how to find out just what is going on within your business.     

The life cycle process [business model for systems engineers]

To fully comprehend any business organisational process environment, a structure has to be understood to measure or benchmark businesses against. When talking to people in business organisations about their concept of marketing, the importance of logistics, production, development or the positioning of a sales force within a company, there is no recognised model to use to describe the organisation. Within organisations the role and requirement of certain tasks are often issues that cannot be reviewed or modified, due to hierarchical, historical, territorial and parochial precedents. Change is often regarded as an enemy not a friend. ISO 9000 and business quality systems are beginning to establish-common practices within organisations but there is no definitive basic business process model to use. Concepts of what should be done where, when, why and by whom differ widely and this model attempts to provide a viable framework, via some simple diagrams, to measure other business processes against. The author presents a business model for systems engineers     

Effects of sheet thickness and anisotropy on forming limit curves of AA2024-T4

In this study, the effects of sheet thickness and anisotropy of AA2024-T4 on forming limit curve (FLC) are experimentally investigated according to ISO 12004-2 standard. A new limit strain measurement method is proposed by using the grid analysis method so as to determine limit strains conveniently and reliably. In addition to the regular test specimens, various widths are added to enhance the FLC’s accuracy at the plane strain condition (PSC). The accuracy and reliability of the proposed method are verified for different materials. Results illustrate that an increase in the sheet thickness increases the FLC level. The additional experiments for additional widths improve the accuracy of the FLC at the PSC, and the position of the lowest major strain value differs from the literature. However, the effect of anisotropy on the FLC is found to be insignificant. Finally, experimental and numerical case studies are carried out for conventional deep drawing, stretch drawing, and hydraulic bulge processes. Results reveal that different FLCs are necessary for different thicknesses for accurate predictions.     

业务过程管理框架与关键技术研究

为了对企业各管理层面各种过程进行统一、连贯的管理,实现跨企业业务过程的无缝集成,给出了业务过程管理的概念和功能,在目前主流的两个业务过程管理框架的基础上提出了一种新的框架。该框架关注业务管理层次、供应链和产品生命周期三个方面,统一管理企业各层次、各领域的过程和跨企业过程,并通过信息技术辅助这种统一管理模式的实现,进一步提出了实施业务过程管理的关键技术问题。对比了业务过程管理和工作流、企业资源规划、企业应用集成等的区别和联系。分析比较的结果表明,业务过程管理是新一代企业信息系统体系结构的重要发展方向。     

A modeiing approach for designing a value chain of virtual enterprise

As the advent of digital economy changes business environment dramatically, virtual enterprise (VE), in general the interactions among business partners in a value chain, has become a key factor to survive under the competitive business environment. VE reveals that more complex and dynamic business processes should be considered as assembled service components in order to integrate the collaborative business processes. Therefore, a formal standard schema for describing and managing the business processes is required. In this paper, we propose a consistent modeling approach that combines enterprise modeling and simulation modeling to design a value chain of a VE. This methodology will provide designers with insight into the business processes of a VE and help identify and resolve unpredictable bottlenecks on the execution of virtual business processes. This paper also illustrates an implemented modeling tool which is based on the generalized model suggested by the working group of the international conference on enterprise integration and modeling technology (ICEIMT) and notations by the object management group (OMG)’s unified modeling language (UML) profile for enterprise distributed object computing (EDOC).     

技术创新对企业经济发展的作用及实现途径

本文论述了技术创新在企业经济发展中的重要作用，指出技术创新是企业技术进步的核心。并从运行机制、创新环境、政策导向、管理措施等方面概述了企业实施技术创新的途径。     

A modeling approach for designing a value chain of virtual enterprise

As the advent of digital economy changes business environment dramatically, virtual enterprise (VE), in general the interactions among business partners in a value chain, has become a key factor to survive under the competitive business environment. VE reveals that more complex and dynamic business processes should be considered as assembled service components in order to integrate the collaborative business processes. Therefore, a formal standard schema for describing and managing the business processes is required. In this paper, we propose a consistent modeling approach that combines enterprise modeling and simulation modeling to design a value chain of a VE. This methodology will provide designers with insight into the business processes of a VE and help identify and resolve unpredictable bottlenecks on the execution of virtual business processes. This paper also illustrates an implemented modeling tool which is based on the generalized model suggested by the working group of the international conference on enterprise integration and modeling technology (ICEIMT) and notations by the object management group (OMG)’s unified modeling language (UML) profile for enterprise distributed object computing (EDOC).     

An object-oriented reference model of the fuzzy front end of the new product introduction process

The global pressures of the modern market are placing an ever-increasing emphasis on the rapid development and introduction of new products. Central to this aim is the implementation of an effective business process for managing and controlling product innovation. Research has shown that the front end stages of the so-called new product introduction (NPI) process are weakest in a high proportion of companies and direct support is needed in this area. This paper describes how an object-oriented methodology has been applied to develop a reference model and architecture to facilitate the re-engineering and implementation of a high quality business process and help remove the fuzziness of the critical early stages of NPI. The results from the application and testing of this tool within a wide range of different companies are summarised and used to help derive conclusions regarding the validity of the research.     

面向流程的企业知识地图及其本体实现

为解决当前知识管理系统普遍存在的知识管理与组织业务流程缺乏有效结合的问题,实现企业范围内知识资源的集成与协同利用,通过分析知识地图技术及其在企业知识管理中的应用模式,构造了面向流程企业知识地图分层管理模型,提出了基于本体技术及Web本体描述语言的一种模型实现方法,并通过应用实例验证了模型的有效性。该模型在实现企业范围内知识集成和协同的同时,也为协同商务环境下组织间知识的协同管理创造了条件。     

Manufacturing interoperability using a semantic mediation

Globalization has become a major trend in today’s business environment, which has led to the explosion in the amount of information shared amongst business partners. It is critical to share information correctly, inexpensively, and effectively for accomplishing business goals using global information sharing architectures under increasing pressure of competitive markets. One of the major barriers to build such a global information sharing architecture is caused by the absence of universally accepted ontology needed to facilitate business partners to be seamlessly interoperable with one another within a global manufacturing world. In reality, due to heterogeneous enterprise environments in which business partners find themselves, multiple ontologies are defined and used. In this paper, we present a method for semantically mapping different business documents to a conforming document format, given inevitable existence of multiple ontolgoies. Forward reasoning rules are used to express the mapping, and they are applied to exchange messages between heterogeneous business partners. We demonstrate our semantic mapping approach by using a demonstrator that uses Web services for service components and the Jena package for a reasoning engine. A business scenario of the demonstrator consists of a part ordering transaction taking place between an original equipment manufacturer and its supplier. This approach can also be applied to other manufacturing operations such as parts scheduling, order sequencing, and inventory.     

基于BPMN的业务流程一体化建模方法

为了给业务分析员提供一种简单易懂、直接支持计算机仿真和执行的可视化业务流程建模方法,提出了业务流程一体化建模概念及方法。该方法以业务分析员为本,用业务流程建模符号可视化描述业务流程,用非结构化方式存储业务流程;基于元素语义细分设计理念,完善了业务流程建模符号规范图形元素的显示语义,引入非图形元素Node,以明确业务流程执行语义,设计了描述业务流程模型的元模型结构及计算机仿真与执行机制。通过实际研发业务流程管理系统,验证了该方法的可行性。     

奔向世界级企业的突破口以模块化为基础的大规模定制(MC)

在20世纪,“大规模生产”造就了一大批“工业发达国家”;在21世纪“大规模定制”（MC）成了企业竞争的新前沿.这是一场新的以模块化为基础的制造业革命.在企业竞争力的三大要素（技术、管理、研发模式）中,选择模块化的研发模式（MC）,可取得速度和成本上的优势,是奔向世界级企业的突破口.     

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION METHOD FOR BUSINESS PROCESS OF MACHINERY MANUFACTURER BASED ON DEA/AHP HYBRID MODEL

A set of indices for performance evaluation for business processes with multiple inputs and multiple outputs is proposed, which are found in machinery manufacturers. Based on the traditional methods of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and analytical hierarchical process (AHP), a hybrid model called DEA/AHP model is proposed to deal with the evaluation of business process performance. With the proposed method, the DEA is firstly used to develop a pairwise comparison matrix, and then the AHP is applied to evaluate the performance of business process using the pairwise comparison matrix. The significant advantage of this hybrid model is the use of objective data instead of subjective human judgment for performance evaluation. In the case study, a project of business process reengineering (BPR) with a hydraulic machinery manufacturer is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the DEA/AHP model.     

面向敏捷供应链的柔性企业资源计划研究

企业资源计划系统刚性太强，是其实施成功率较低的一个重要原因。为提高该系统的柔性，支持业务系统随企业业务变动而适应性演进，提出了一个基于集成化建模技术与Web Services技术的、以工作流管理系统为核心的柔性企业资源计划框架，以开放性、集成性、适应性和面向整个供应链为系统目标。该框架基于模型驱动的思想，将具备一致性的企业模型映射为不同层次的Web Services规范，对应到信息系统的数据层、业务基础件和业务过程等不同应用层次。基于Web Services规范流程描述语言的工作流系统和统一描述、发现和集成协议注册仓是实现整个系统整合和柔性演进的核心。     

UML-PNs集成建模方法及其在虚拟企业中的应用

虚拟企业是未来企业的重要组织形态,它的主要职能之一是执行分布、并么经营过程。本文致力于虚拟企业的经营过程建模研究,以面向对象的虚拟企业经营过程描述为基础,提出了集成标准模语言和Ｐｅｔｒｉ网的虚拟企业经营过程建模方法－ＵＭＬ－ＰＮｓ集成建模方法。该方法提供了支持需求分析、模型描述和设计、模型分析和仿真,直至模型实现的一体化框架。最后,我们设计了旨在实现ＵＭＬ－ＰＮｓ集成建模方法的系统平台。     

基于协调决策中心的供应链应用系统集成平台研究

为了支持供应链集成化管理,提出了一个在电子商务环境下基于协调决策中心的供应链应用系统集成平台。它包括框架结构、核心功能集和供应链数据交换规范等。在该集成平台中,将供应链应用系统集成归纳为企业内部应用系统的集成和企业间应用系统的集成两类,采用基于公共对象请求代理体系结构封装技术的集成接口代理实现企业内应用系统集成,采用基于可扩展标记语言数据交换技术的数据泵实现企业间应用系统集成。利用该集成平台,将供应链管理的核心业务流程和企业管理应用系统等通过相应的标准组合起来,实现面向多企业的供应链集成化管理。     

Teams and their Motivation for Business Process Reengineering: A Research Note

When business process reengineering (BPR) is undertaken, one of the requirements leading to its development and implementation is that of teams. There have not been many publications about the teams that are formed for undertaking BPR. This article addresses the theoretical issues surrounding such teams and attempts to provide an understanding of the role of motivation in such teams. Furthermore, an overview of the research process that is undertaken within the article is presented.     

应变管理及其运行模式探讨

在激烈的市场竞争与飞速发展的科学技术面前，企业生存与发展的关键就是针对周围环境的变化，适时地改变经营目标、调整经营战略、重组制造资源等系列改革。如何成功地进行企业改革，是每一个企业管理人员及有关研究人员面临的共同课题。应变管理正是针对这一问题而提出的。本文以取得企业应变活动成功为目的，介绍了应变管理的基本概念及其发展过程，分析了目前企业内部的各种应变活动，探讨了应变管理的模式，提出了集成化应变管理的概念。