Sustainable Alignment in Enterprise Architecture: A Case Study of Architectural Principles

2014 ◽  
pp. 214-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kalevi Pessi ◽  
Mats-Åke Hugoson ◽  
Thanos Magoulas ◽  
Aida Hadzic
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Architectural Principles

scholarly journals Using Enterprise Architecture to Integrate Lean Manufacturing, Digitalization, and Sustainability: A Lean Enterprise Case Study in the Chemical Industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4851
Author(s):  
Ming-Hui Liao ◽  
Chi-Tai Wang
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Industry ◽  
Lean Manufacturing ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Core Competencies ◽  
Sustainable Business ◽  
Business Transformation ◽  
Lean Enterprise ◽  
Architecture Framework

The chemical industry has sustained the development of global economies by providing an astonishing variety of products and services, while also consuming massive amounts of raw materials and energy. Chemical firms are currently under tremendous pressure to become lean enterprises capable of executing not only traditional lean manufacturing practices but also emerging competing strategies of digitalization and sustainability. All of these are core competencies required for chemical firms to compete and thrive in future markets. Unfortunately, reports of successful transformation are so rare among chemical firms that acquiring the details of these cases would seem an almost impossible mission. The severe lack of knowledge about these business transformations thus provided a strong motivation for this research. Using The Open Group Architecture Framework, we performed an in-depth study on a real business transformation occurring at a major international chemical corporation, extracting the architecture framework possibly adopted by this firm to become a lean enterprise. This comprehensive case study resulted in two major contributions to the field of sustainable business transformation: (1) a custom lean enterprise architecture framework applicable to common chemical firms making a similar transformation, and (2) a lean enterprise model developed to assist chemical firms in comprehending the intricate and complicated dynamics between lean manufacturing, digitalization, and sustainability.

scholarly journals A Design of the Resilient Enterprise: A Reference Architecture for Emergent Behaviors Control

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (22) ◽  
pp. 6672
Author(s):  
Rob Bemthuis ◽  
Maria-Eugenia Iacob ◽  
Paul Havinga
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Reference Architecture ◽  
Systems Of Systems ◽  
Supply Chain Resilience ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Emergent Behaviors

The sooner disruptive emergent behaviors are detected, the sooner preventive measures can be taken to ensure the resilience of business processes execution. Therefore, organizations need to prepare for emergent behaviors by embedding corrective control mechanisms, which help coordinate organization-wide behavior (and goals) with the behavior of local autonomous entities. Ongoing technological advances, brought by the Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical systems of systems paradigms, can support integration within complex enterprises, such as supply chains. In this paper, we propose a reference enterprise architecture for the detection and monitoring of emergent behaviors in enterprises. We focus on addressing the need for an adequate reaction to disruptions. Based on a systematic review of the literature on the topic of current architectural designs for understanding emergent behaviors, we distill architectural requirements. Our architecture is a hybrid as it combines distributed autonomous business logic (expressed in terms of simple business rules) and some central control mechanisms. We exemplify the instantiation and use of this architecture by means of a proof-of-concept implementation, using a multimodal logistics case study. The obtained results provide a basis for achieving supply chain resilience “by design”, i.e., through the design of coordination mechanisms that are well equipped to absorb and compensate for the effects of emergent disruptive behaviors.

scholarly journals Active Semantic Relations in Layered Enterprise Architecture Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
Matt Baxter ◽  
Simon Polovina ◽  
Wim Laurier ◽  
Mark von Rosing
Keyword(s):  
Directed Graph ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Directed Graphs ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Formal Concept ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Conceptual Graph ◽  
Architecture Development

AbstractEnterprise Architecture (EA) metamodels align an organisation’s business, information and technology resources so that these assets best meet the organisation’s purpose. The Layered EA Development (LEAD) Ontology enhances EA practices by a metamodel with layered metaobjects as its building blocks interconnected by semantic relations. Each metaobject connects to another metaobject by two semantic relations in opposing directions, thus highlighting how each metaobject views other metaobjects from its perspective. While the resulting two directed graphs reveal all the multiple pathways in the metamodel, more desirable would be to have one directed graph that focusses on the dependencies in the pathways. Towards this aim, using CG-FCA (where CG refers to Conceptual Graph and FCA to Formal Concept Analysis) and a LEAD case study, we determine an algorithm that elicits the active as opposed to the passive semantic relations between the metaobjects resulting in one directed graph metamodel. We also identified the general applicability of our algorithm to any metamodel that consists of triples of objects with active and passive relations.

A Theory for Enterprise Coherence Governance

2014 ◽  
pp. 150-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel Wagter ◽  
Henderik A. Proper ◽  
Dirk Witte
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Product Portfolio ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Project Failures ◽  
It Support ◽  
Key Aspects

In this chapter, the authors pose a theory for the governance of enterprise coherence. The proposed theory consists of three key ingredients: an Enterprise Coherence-governance Assessment (ECA), an Enterprise Coherence Framework (ECF), and an Enterprise Coherence Governance (ECG) approach. The ECA provides an explicit indication of the degree at which an organisation governs its coherence, while also providing a base to achieve a shared understanding of the level of coherence, and actions needed to improve it. The ECF is a practice-based framework that enables enterprises to make the coherence between key aspects, such as business, finance, culture, IT, etc. explicit. The ECG approach offers the instruments to guard/improve the level of coherence in enterprises during transformations. An important trigger to develop this new theory was the observation that many transformation projects fail. These failures even included projects that used an explicit enterprise architecture to steer the transformation. The theory was developed as part of the GEA (General Enterprise Architecting) research programme, involving twenty client organizations. Based on a survey of the possible causes for the project failures, the requirements for the research programme are identified. In developing the theory on enterprise coherence, the following hypothesis is used as a starting point: the overall performance of an enterprise is positively influenced by a strong coherence among the key aspects of the enterprise, including business processes, organizational culture, product portfolio, human resources, information systems, IT support, etc. The research programme uses a combination of design science-based iterations and case study-based research to develop and iterate the theory for enterprise coherence governance. In this chapter, the authors also discuss one of the conducted (real world) case studies, showing the application of the enterprise coherence theory.

Decisions Required vs. Decisions Made

2013 ◽  
pp. 176-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Zimmermann ◽  
Christoph Miksovic
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Architectural Analysis ◽  
Architecture Framework ◽  
Architectural Principles ◽  
Decision Guidance ◽  
Enterprise Architecture Framework ◽  
Architectural Knowledge ◽  
Governance Processes

Contemporary enterprise architecture frameworks excel at inventorying as-is and at specifying to-be architecture landscapes; they also help enterprise architects to establish governance processes and architectural principles. Solution architects, however, expect mature frameworks not only to express such fundamental design constraints, but also to provide concrete and tangible guidance how to comply with framework building blocks, processes, and principles – a route planner is needed in addition to maps of destinations. In this chapter, the authors show how to extend an existing enterprise architecture framework with decision guidance models that capture architectural decisions recurring in a particular domain. Such guidance models codify architectural knowledge by recommending proven patterns, technologies, and products; architectural principles are represented as decision drivers. Owned by enterprise architects but populated and consumed by solution architects, guidance models are living artifacts (reusable assets) that realize a lightweight knowledge exchange between the two communities – and provide the desired route planners for architectural analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

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