A visual language and environment for enterprise system modelling and automation

ObjectiveWe want to support enterprise service modelling and generation using a more end user-friendly metaphor than current approaches, which fail to scale to large organisations with key issues of “cobweb” and “labyrinth” problems and large numbers of hidden dependencies.MethodWe present and evaluate an integrated visual approach for business process modelling using a novel tree-based overlay structure that effectively mitigate complexity problems. A tree-overlay based visual notation (EML) and its integrated support environment (MaramaEML) supplement and integrate with existing solutions. Complex business architectures are represented as service trees and business processes are modelled as process overlay sequences on the service trees.ResultsMaramaEML integrates EML and BPMN to provide complementary, high-level business service modelling and supports automatic BPEL code generation from the graphical representations to realise web services implementing the specified processes. It facilitates generated service validation using an integrated LTSA checker and provides a distortion-based fisheye and zooming function to enhance complex diagram navigation. Evaluations of EML show its effectiveness.ConclusionsWe have successfully developed and evaluated a novel tree-based metaphor for business process modelling and enterprise service generation. Practice implications: a more user-friendly modelling approach and support tool for business end users.     

Interoperable enterprise systems: Principles, concepts, and methods

Interoperable enterprise systems (be they supply chains, extended enterprises, or any form of virtual organizations) must be designed, controlled, and appraised from a holistic and systemic point of view. Systems interoperability is a key to enterprise integration, which recommends that the IT architecture and infrastructure be aligned with business process organization and control, themselves designed according to a strategic view expressed in an enterprise architecture. The paper discusses architectures and methods to build interoperable enterprise systems, advocating a mixed service and process orientation, to support synchronous and/or asynchronous operations, both at the business level (business events, business services, business processes) and at the application level (workflow, IT and Web services, application programs).     

业务流程管理与集成系统SynchroFLOW的软件体系结构

信息技术的快速发展和应用改变着企业的商业环境。面对市场竞争越来越激烈,如何提高系统柔性,以支持企业重组和业务流程再遣;如何集成异构系统,对原有系统资源的利用和保护。本文从业务域的角度提出了一种企业应用业务流程管理和集成系统SynchroFLOW的软件体系结构,该体系构架以企业业务需求的抽象与描述为基础,通过对企业应用业务流程、活动功能和活动参与者的信息交换机制的独立的封装,降低业务逻辑、业务数据和业务操作实体三者间的耦合,实现业务流程的柔性管理和异构环境下不同应用的功能集成。这样的系统不但具有较高的柔性和集成性,同时减轻需求确认和设计验证的难度和工作量,进而延长应用系统的生命周期。     

Business architecture: A new paradigm to relate business strategy to ICT

In this paper we address the concept of business architecture. We explain the concept and, based on a case study, discuss its relevance, operation, relationship with strategy and business models, and value for an organization. We also shortly discuss the approach that was taken to create the business architecture; how it was based on and derived from the business strategy. Business architectures contribute to clarify the complexity within an organization and form a useful starting point from which to develop subsequent functional, information, process and application architectures. We clarify these relationships through an architecture linkage model. Having an explicit business architecture also helps to structure the responsibilities within an organization, and to shape outsourcing activities, within the primary process as well as with regard to ICT-support. Business architectures contribute to an adequate ICT-governance in order to orchestrate the resources for critical business activities and how to manage the development and support for e-business efficiently. Gerrit Versteeg is managing partner/business architect for FourPoints Intelligence and has almost twenty years of experience in designing architectures for a variety of large customers. He graduated with honors in Strategic Management at Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University) and is currently pursuing his PhD researching the field of Business Architecture at Delft University of Technology. Harry Bouwman is an associate professor at Delft University of Technology, Information and Communication Technology, Faculty Technology, Policy and Management. He served as an interim chair of the ICT-section in the period 2000–2002 and in 2004. He studied political science at the Free University of Amsterdam (1979). He is specialized in research methods and techniques, statistic and communication sciences. He followed courses in the domain of Computer Science at the Open University (1985–86). He received his PhD at Catholic University Nijmegen in 1986 at the Faculty of Social Science. Fields of interest:—ICT and organizations, strategic management in relation to ICT-management, Business Architecture;- Business models, Customer Value, Network formation, specifically with regard to 3G+ Mobile telecommunications services;- Innovation Management, ICT-entrepreneurship, high-tech ICT clusters or technopoles, incubators, role of national and local governments, and - Technology neutral regulation of telecommunication, (history of) Internet, Interconnection issues, QoS, telecommunication management.     

基于TOGAF的轨道交通企业信息化架构规划研究

企业信息化规划是企业战略研究的重要内容,对企业信息化的发展至关重要。在基于TOGAF(The Open Group Architec-ture Framework)的企业信息化规划研究基础上,围绕企业系统规划方法,研究了从企业总体架构到信息系统的规划过程,并结合实际的轨道交通信息化规划案例,进行了业务建模研究和应用架构研究。信息化规划的实践表明,该方法可以大大降低企业信息化业务建模的难度、提高企业信息化架构规划和实施的可行性,适应于企业信息化架构的规划和建设。     

Enterprise Integration—Business Processes Integrated Management: a proposal for a methodology to develop Enterprise Integration Programs

An approach to develop Enterprise Integration Programs to assist enterprises in their migration path towards integration is proposed. It is called IE—GIP (Enterprise Integration—Business Processes Integrated Management, acronyms in Spanish). The topic is very important in industrial engineering nowadays because of the growing need to improve existing industrial systems and to organise such complex systems faster, better, and in a more systematic way. The contribution to the field of Enterprise Integration is mostly a methodological one. More specifically, it is based on the integration of Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) and Open System Architecture for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIMOSA) principles to propose an integration approach for industrial enterprises. Starting from existing leading proposals (CIMOSA, PERA, GERAM), a methodology has been defined and some extension to an architecture and supporting computer tools are discussed. The proposal covers the life cycle of an Enterprise Integration Program in a top-down approach. The approach is centred on the business process concept, but is based on a vision/process/people/technology view of the enterprise. The methodology divides the work into two major phases before system construction: master planning and CIM programme development. The method adapts the system life cycle of PERA but uses, whenever possible, the CIMOSA architecture with its business process approach. New CIMOSA-like constructs are introduced to be used in activities along with the methodology when necessary. To support the modelling phases of the proposal and to provide guidance to users of the methodology, computer supported tools have been developed in the course of this work.     

An e-contracting reference architecture

Business-to-business e-contracting aims at automating the contracting process between companies. It improves the efficiency of the contracting process and enables the introduction of new business models that can be supported by companies. For the development of an e-contracting system, an architecture is required that describes the system components and the communication channels between them. This paper presents a reference architecture for the development of e-contracting systems. The architecture is designed on the basis of a requirement analysis of e-contracting systems. Established architectural principles are used in its design. The architecture can serve as a foundation in the analysis and design of concrete architectures of e-contracting systems. Furthermore, it can be used as a standardization model that facilitates system integration and communication of ideas. Its value for both software architects and business professionals makes it an important tool in the analysis and implementation of e-contracting systems.     

企业短信服务系统的设计与实现

实现了一个以数据库为中心,B/S结构的企业短信服务系统.阐述了系统的架构设计和数据库设计.详细讨论了功能模块的实现方案以及实现技术.     

企业应用软件架构分析

通过对企业业务体系的根本需求进行分析,描述了企业业务及其支持软件的特点.从时间和空间两个维度上对企业软件架构进行了描述,通过分析企业应用软件架构与企业业务改进过程的关系,对架构的开发和部署过程提出了一些建议.     

Process-centered knowledge model and enterprise ontology for the development of knowledge management system

Among many enterprise assets, knowledge is treated as a critical driving force for attaining enterprise performance goals. This is because knowledge facilitates the better business decision makings in a timely fashion. However, since knowledge is created and utilized during the execution of business processes, if knowledge is separated from the business process context, it does not lead to the ability to take the right action for target performance.This paper proposes the framework for process-centered knowledge model and enterprise ontology for the context-rich and networked knowledge storage and retrieval required during task execution. The enterprise knowledge object for a process-centered knowledge model is classified into two types: process knowledge and task support knowledge. In the proposed enterprise ontology, which represents major enterprise concepts, and the relationships between them, all domain concepts are related to the “process” concept, both directly and indirectly. As a result, networked and sophisticated knowledge, rather than single-level knowledge, is provided to the participant of unit activity.In order to show the applicability of the proposed framework, a process-centered KMS (knowledge management system) was also developed, which is classified into 3 parts: (1) project management sub-system based on process knowledge. (2) Knowledge management sub-system for maintaining task support knowledge. (3) Infrastructure sub-system which supports the above two sub-systems.     

Business information modeling for process integration in the mold making industry

Driven by industrial needs and enabled by the latest information technology, enterprise integration has rapidly shifted from information integration to process integration for performance excellence in the entire business process. This paper reports on the modeling of a business information model which enables mold making companies to achieve business process integration. The needs of process integration in mold making companies are first highlighted. Typical mold making business processes are analyzed and four critical business processes to be integrated are identified. Further, a process-oriented business information model is proposed, which associates business information entities to meet the needs of all business processes. Based on the model, the integration of four critical business processes is investigated, which enables seamless information flows to streamline the business processes, maximize information sharing across the business processes and achieve the automation and concurrency of the business processes. Finally, the implementation and benefits to industry of the system derived from the developed information model is presented.     

基于业务构件的快速可重构信息系统的框架研究

1 引言系统可重构的思想蕴含着“适者生存”的“应变”的哲理。快速可重构性已成为智能系统的基本特性,是衡量系统响应变化能力的重要指标,是企业赢得全球化市场竞争的关键因素。快速体现为尽量缩短新产品的上市时间,而系统重构体现为变化来临时系统中的子系统会重新组合而产生新功能、新过程或更高层的整体性。快速可重构信息系统(Rapid     

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 requirements engineering framework for cross-organizational ERP systems

The development of cross-organizational enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions is becoming increasingly critical to the business strategy of many networked companies. The major function of cross-organizational ERP solutions is to coordinate work in two or more organizations. However, how to align ERP application components and business requirements for coordination and cooperation is hardly known. This paper reports on the outcomes of applying a coordination theory perspective to an analysis of the ERP misalignment problem. We present a conceptual framework for analyzing coordination and cooperation requirements in inter-organizational ERP projects. The framework makes explicit the undocumented built-in assumptions for coordination and cooperation that may have significant implications for the ERP adopters and incorporates a library of existing coordination mechanisms supported by modern ERP systems. We use it to develop a proposal for how to achieve a better alignment between ERP implementations and supported business coordination processes in inter-organizational settings. We report on some early assessments of the implications of our framework for practicing requirements engineers. Both our framework and library rest on a literature survey and the first author’s experience with ERP implementation. In future empirical research, we will further validate and refine our framework.     

企业云服务体系结构的参考模型与开发方法

服务与云计算范型的融合有助于大规模分布式软件的开发和应用,同时也为面向服务的软件工程带来了新的挑战。云计算的最大挑战是缺少事实上的标准或单一的体系结构方法,以满足企业将关键产品作为Internet上的云服务发布的应用需求。首先,针对企业云计算的业务特点,提出了一种企业云服务体系结构(Enterprise Cloud Service Architecture,ECSA)风格的通用和抽象参考模型,分析了该模型中的云服务、服务模式、服务消费者、管理、流程、质量属性、服务构件模型、服务匹配和交互模式匹配9个组件及其之间的关系,并讨论了它们中的角色。然后,提出了一个四阶段的ECSA迭代改进过程,该过程把云服务视为首要的类建模元素,通过解除云服务模型和来自目标构件配置之间的耦合,可实现相同云服务集的多种不同体系结构。最后,给出了一种基于该模型的期货程序化交易的私有云服务应用实例,用以展示该方法的可行性和有效性。     

Towards a flexible deployment of business rules

Business rules give rise to an important set of requirements on any system being developed or procured for an enterprise. While most of the work done in this area focuses on identifying and documenting business rules, we have proposed a methodology that addresses several aspects of the business rules lifecycle: acquisition, deployment and evolution. The methodology assumes that business rules are expressed in terms of business concepts and corporate knowledge that are captured in a high level architecture. The architecture proposed consists of three interconnected components: the enterprise model, the business rules model and the decision support model. This approach permits a greater variety of rules to be specified while providing an opportunity to automate the production of deployable business rules. The ability to deal with the inconsistent and ambiguous rules is crucial in capturing the conflicting requirements placed on the operation of any large scale enterprise. This paper presents a flexible deployment of business rules, which not only supports decision making in the face of conflicting requirements, but also the evolution of those requirements in the face of changing regulatory environments, competitive markets and corporate goals.     

Enterprise-level business component identification in business architecture integration

The component-based business architecture integration of military information systems is a popular research topic in the field of military operational research. Identifying enterprise-level business components is an important issue in business architecture integration. Currently used methodologies for business component identification tend to focus on software-level business components, and ignore such enterprise concerns in business architectures as organizations and resources. Moreover, approaches to enterprise-level business component identification have proven laborious. In this study, we propose a novel approach to enterprise-level business component identification by considering overall cohesion, coupling, granularity, maintainability, and reusability. We first define and formulate enterprise-level business components based on the component business model and the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) models. To quantify the indices of business components, we formulate a create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) matrix and use six metrics as criteria. We then formulate business component identification as a multi-objective optimization problem and solve it by a novel meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called the ‘simulated annealing hybrid genetic algorithm (SHGA)’. Case studies showed that our approach is more practical and efficient for enterprise-level business component identification than prevalent approaches.