André Vasconcelos

A framework for modeling strategy, business processes and information systems

In order to continuously improve its knowledge and to identify problems and possible solutions, an organization requires understanding of the way business is aligned with the organizational strategy and how information systems are supporting the business. The paper presents a framework for describing and associating organizational concepts at multiple levels of detail using three separate areas of concerns: goals and strategy, business processes, and information systems. The framework is presented as an extension to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) using a standard UML Profile. The framework concepts are illustrated by modeling the purchase and sales business operations of a retail store from the strategic, process and information systems viewpoints.

Enterprise Architecture Analysis - An Information System Evaluation Approach

The definition of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) has a central role in implementing Information Systems (ISs) that proactively contribute to business and Information Technology (IT) alignment. In this paper, using a set of key concepts for the Information System Architecture (ISA) specification (formalized in a UML profile), 16 metrics are proposed for ISA suitability assessment considering a set of required quality characteristics. This paper also proposes an exploratory approach for the ISA definition process. This approach combines EA primitives and metrics in order to support multi-criteria ISA selection. The proposals presented in this research are applied in the definition, evaluation and comparing of different architectural options for the new Portuguese National identification document project (the Citizen Card project).

Enterprise Dynamic Systems Control Enforcement of Run-Time Business Transactions

Business transactions models prescribe the design freedom restrictions of the business transactions dynamics but per se do not guarantee that organizational actors perform them accordingly. Enterprise dynamic systems control (EDSC) guarantees that the prescriptions are followed in the operation by performing a continuously cycle of observation, decision and control action. Control action actuates with a change in the business transaction models prescription to avoid the recurrence of unintended operations or a change in the control rules if the deviation from prescription is recognized as being innovative. This paper proposes a full DEMO-based ontology to enforce EDSC in the run-time operation of business transactions. The EDSC proposal is exemplified using (i) DEMO business transaction ontological specification, (ii) actor’s qualification mechanim integrated with business transactions and (iii) business rules enforced in the actor’s ex-post acts.

A Reference Application Architecture for the CRM Domain: The Portuguese Citizen Space Case Study

This paper presents the definition of a Reference Application Architecture for the Customer Relationship Management CRM domain. The definition of the Reference Application Architecture is done by extracting best practices from five CRM commercial solutions: SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sage CRM, Oracle Siebel CRM and Salesforce CRM. The CRM Reference Architecture was developed considering the shared functionalities and information entities among these commercial solutions. In the Reference Architecture the authors identify six modules in the CRM system and five systems, which interact with the CRM system. The six CRM modules are: Account module, Sales module, Marketing module, Service module, Scheduler Module and Administration module. The five interacting systems are: Portal, Contact Center, Document and Knowledge Base Management system, Workflow system and Reporting and Analytics system. Then the authors apply the defined architecture in a case study from the Portuguese Public Administration, the Citizen Spaces provided by the Agency for the Administrative Modernization. The authors compare the current state of the Citizen Spaces with a possible architecture reached through the Reference Architecture, and assess the benefits and pitfalls of the purposed architecture.

Using organizational modeling to evaluate health care IS/IT projects

This paper presents a research project that aims at creating a methodology for evaluating IS/IT projects in the Portuguese health care system. This project is being jointly developed by the Center for Organizational Engineering and a task force from Saude XXI, the Portuguese health operational program. In order to create a framework on which to base project evaluation, the project team developed a model of the Portuguese health system, using the CEO framework. The CEO framework is a UML based organizational modeling framework that uses business process and information systems modeling techniques to represent, monitor and simulate organizational behavior. The model created reflects the reality of the Portuguese health care system, including the entities involved, the inter and intra-organizational processes that are executed, the current information systems architecture and the in force information systems strategy. Based on the created organizational model, the project team created a tool that facilitates the evaluation of IS/IT projects, by measuring (1) the support to the current processes; (2) the conformance to the IS architecture and strategy; (3) the relation with other past or current projects. This paper describes the organizational modeling process that was executed, the developed evaluation methodologies and tools, and the preliminary results regarding ongoing project evaluation.

Understanding Strategy: a Goal Modeling Methodology

This paper introduces advances to the topic of business goal modeling. The major guidelines to the presented work are the increasing of representational power of goal models, the introduction of goal achievement indicators and the development of a methodology for capturing goals and associating them with business processes. Increased representational power on goal models can be gained by introducing management theories’ concepts like measures and indicators and the business stakeholders and pressure groups.

Executing Enterprise Dynamic Systems Control with the Demo Processor: The Business Transactions Transition Space Validation

Business transactions models are useful to share a common understanding between the stakeholders in a process-based organization; however alone they do not guarantee that the actors perform their actions correspondingly. This paper proposes and exemplifies a solution to the Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) generation and operation using a Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach founded and derived from Enterprise Ontology (EO) theory. The obtained EIS are (i) descriptive information systems that monitor and deliver a truthful representation of the enterprise on a software engine: the DEMO processor and (ii) prescriptive information system supported by an ontology specifically researched for controlling the operation of business transactions: the enterprise dynamic systems control (EDSC). The achieved benefits are (i) partially automatic validation of EDSC ontology; (ii) self-contained environment to test and validate the DEMO processor and (iii) full workflow capabilities calculated from DEMO models, with formal rigor, minimizing anomalies and minimizing the programming effort.

Adaptive Access Control Modes Enforcement in Organizations

Granting the correct access between the agents and the artifacts is nowadays in the organizations agendas. The risk of allowing unauthorized accesses to critical information requires new solutions that are capable of dealing with a holistic perspective. Adaptive OACM refers to the capability of enforcing fine-grained access policies to business processes, services and information systems whenever facing changes, for instance, governance policies. This paper proposes an OACM ontology based in the RBAC, UUID, Rules and architectural model concepts. For exemplification purposes we instantiate the concepts of the ontology to an approval expense problem.

Methodologies of support to the execution of risk management

Since Risk Management became an organizational concern lots of guidelines have been published. On the last quarter of 2009 it was published a new one that proposes itself to be a real standard for the risk management, the ISO 31000. However, any of the guidelines included in the scope of this work covers the implementation and afterwards the execution of themselves, even the ISO 31000. So, this reality joined with the heterogeneity of the companies turns the implementation and execution of such guidelines much difficult. In this work we propose a methodology to support the implementation and execution of risk management, having as test bed the risk management process of ISO 31000. The work is focused mainly in the activities Establishing the Context and Risk Assessment, which are the ones that present the greatest challenges of implementation and execution. The methodology is based in two basic components: entrepreneurial cartography and multidimensional techniques of analysis (ROLAP). Its validation was done in a real organizational context, submitting it at the treatment of the technological risk, namely to the unavailability risk event.

Arquitectura de Sistemas de Informação: A Ferramenta de Alinhamento Negócio / Sistemas de Informação?

O Acto de gerir adquiriu ao longo do tempo uma crescente complexidade. Cada vez sao mais as incertezas quanto ao seu resultado, e cada vez maior o numero de variaveis que tendem a influencia-la. Como tal, os Sistemas de Informacao sao hoje um recurso chave no apoio a tarefa “Gerir”. Nunca foi tao importante explorar ao maximo toda a informacao que prolifera numa dada organizacao. “Gerir e decidir em cenario de incerteza, com suporte probabilistico e intuicao, na procura constante de antecipar o futuro, actuando o mais cedo possivel, com um determinado nivel de risco. A informacao constitui o recurso-chave para a reducao da incerteza na gestao empresarial. Saber gerir a informacao de forma a apoiar a gestao global da unidade economica, e actualmente um dos principais desafios que se coloca as empresas” [Zorrinho, Carlos 1995]. Aproveitar os meios que as TIC (Tecnologias de Informacao e Comunicacao) disponibilizam, passou a ser nao somente um factor de sucesso mas essencialmente um factor de sobrevivencia.Apresenta-se um sistema de apoio a decisao (SAD) cujo principal objectivo e aplicar metodos formais de apoio a decisao, no âmbito da gestao de uma rede rodoviaria. Partindo de uma analise efectuada a dados disponibilizados pelo Instituto para a Conservacao e Exploracao da Rede Rodoviaria (ICERR), foi adaptada uma estrutura de dados que permitiu eliminar as redundâncias, inconsistencias e lacunas detectadas. O Sistema de Informacao (SI) desenvolvido corresponde aos requisitos fundamentais de um sistema de apoio a decisao (flexibilidade e interactividade), e permite a visualizacao dos resultados em ambiente grafico. Integra um Sistema de Informacao Geografica (SIG) – ArcView - e um Sistema de Gestao de Bases de Dados Relacional (SGBDR) - 4th Dimension. O metodo de apoio a decisao implementado foi o ELECTRE TRI, por se abordar este caso como sendo um problema de afectacao, de situacoes observadas, a classes que sao pre-definidas a partir de situacoes de referencia. A classificacao em classes tem por objectivo permitir ao Agente de Decisao (AD) tomar decisoes de forma coerente e fundamentada, no que respeita a afectacao de recursos (sempre escassos) para as operacoes de conservacao de uma rede de estradas.Neste artigo aborda-se o tema gestao do conhecimento nas organizacoes, apresentando-se o estudo de caso do Departamento de Informatica da Universidade da Beira Interior. Estuda-se o processo de geracao, transmissao e partilha de conhecimento no contexto deste Departamento e, propoe-se um Modelo de Gestao do Conhecimento que facilite a interaccao entre as pessoas, armazene e favoreca a partilha de informacao e conhecimento no Departamento. No modelo proposto, consideram-se dois niveis: o nivel organizacional e o nivel aplicacional/tecnologico. Ao nivel organizacional sao abordados os aspectos que devem ser considerados para implementar um processo de gestao do conhecimento no Departamento. Ao nivel aplicacional e desenvolvido um Sistema de Gestao do Conhecimento integrado na intranet do Departamento, suportado em tecnologias que facilitam o armazenamento e a partilha de informacao e conhecimento e que inclui, nomeadamente, documentacao cientifica e administrativa, fora de discussao e “melhores praticas”. O sistema serve de suporte ao modelo em termos organizacionais. Como abordagem metodologica adequada para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho, foi escolhido um estudo de caso explicativo e interpretativo, recorrendo-se a triangulacao de metodos, atraves da administracao de um questionario, da observacao participante e da analise documental.Com a finalidade de auxiliar os usuarios, proporcionando recursos e procedimentos para um gerenciamento eficiente das informacoes, a Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina – Unisul implantou um Sistema Integrado de Gestao (Enterprise Resources Planning - ERP), apoiado por uma Arquitetura de Sistemas de Informacao (Information Systems Architecture - ISA). Este artigo apresenta algumas experiencias da implantacao do SAP/R3 e do uso do ARIS na reestruturacao da Unisul, para promover uma melhor integracao dos alunos, docentes e colaboradores aos processos de gestao universitaria, sendo que o aperfeicoamento e a manutencao destes sistemas e apoiada por um grupo de pesquisa, que tambem proporciona suporte e inovacao aos processos de aprendizagem que se vem praticando. Alem disso, descreve-se neste trabalho, uma abordagem do ensino de Reengenharia de Processos de Negocios (Business Process Re-engineering - BPR), considerando que mudancas tecnologicas possibilitam a execucao de tarefas, de modo bem diferente dos anteriores. Tendo em vista que a reestruturacao da universidade e a implantacao do ERP sao tarefas de longo prazo e que exigem melhorias continuas, o principal objetivo deste artigo e contribuir com a aplicacao de conceitos de integracao, mudancas organizacionais e tecnologicas nos procedimentos de ensino.Apresentamos um modelo para geracao automatica de programas para invocacao de transaccoes em sistemas ERP em operacao desconectada. O modelo estende estes sistemas para alem da sua natureza cliente-servidor tradicional, permitindo a existencia de um novo tipo de aplicacoes cliente, executaveis em PDA, capazes de invocar transaccoes das varias areas funcionais dos ERP. Este processo de geracao tem por base as API ja existentes nos ERP, permitindo a construcao de aplicacoes simples correspondentes aos processos elementares do negocio, com capacidade de sincronizacao com o sistema central.Compara-se neste artigo o papel dos Sistemas de Informacao e das Tecnologias de Informacao em duas industrias: texteis e do vestuario; e moldes de plastico. A comparacao e efectuada na optica da cooperacao entre empresas dessas industrias. A presenca mais intensa e generalizada de Sistemas Informacao e Tecnologias de Informacao na industria dos moldes de plastico favorece esta industria, na forma como se envolve em processos de cooperacao inter-organizacionais. A concentracao geografica das empresas das duas industrias em estudo, aponta para a existencia de clusters. No entanto, na industria de moldes de plastico, a evidencia de concentracao geografica das empresas ligadas a industria e mais forte do que para as industrias texteis e do vestuario. Este aspecto parece gerar maiores oportunidades de cooperacao.ERP implementation success is influenced by a large number of factors, which most of the times are difficult to measure objectively. User involvement and participation is one of the most cited critical success factors in ERP implementation projects, and one of the most critical ones for the their satisfactory outcome. This study attempts to define a set of metrics for monitoring user involvement and participation within ERP implementation projects by using the Goals/Questions/Metrics method. The results of this work are twofold. First, a literature review is presented on the user involvement and participation topic as related with ERP implementation projects. And second, a Goals/Questions/Metrics preliminary plan is proposed to monitor and control user involvement and participation within ERP implementation projects.