Angel Ortiz

Enterprise integration—business processes integrated management: a proposal for a methodology to develop enterprise integration programs

Abstract 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.

Enterprise modelling methodology for forward and reverse supply chain flows integration

The paper proposes a new enterprise modelling methodology called ERE-GIO applicable to supply chain reengineering and integration. It is based on two major phases: reverse engineering of the supply chain and then forward engineering. It takes advantages of previous enterprise modelling methodologies, especially CIMOSA. The application of the defined methodology on the logistics flow of an industrial company has allowed the integration of the reverse logistics flows in the traditional supply chain, thanks to the modelling of business processes and the flows related to it.

Business process interoperability and collaborative performance measurement

In the recent years, inter-organisational cooperation has been one of the organisational strategies most used to compete and become adapted to the exigencies of the global market. In this context, internal business processes of the cooperative enterprises should interact to pursue common objectives that will be profitable for all parts. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the performance of these business processes under a strategic approach and in a twofold manner, from a global perspective (inter-enterprise) and from an individual or partial perspective (intra-enterprise). Performance measurement systems (PMSs) described in the literature that discuss this context are very different in their conception and broadness. This paper describes the basic characteristics that PMSs should fulfil to cover interoperability requirements and a literature review of the PMSs that deal with business process interoperability in order to gain detailed insight into PMS definition for these contexts. From the literature review, a comparison of the PMSs is obtained with regard to eight core characteristics for these contexts: business process representation, business process measurement, business process lifecycle management, PMS intra and interorganisational levels measurement, process-decomposition approach, intra-inter-process connection measurement, interorganisational coordination measurement, and common interorganisational strategy.

How enterprise architectures can support integration

This article states the importance of Enterprise Architectures as a way to identify interoperability problems. Enterprise Architectures provide a common view of the primary resources of any enterprise (people, processes and technology) and how they integrate to provide the primary drivers of the enterprise. The authors of this work sketch an example where different kinds of integration problems are detected. Tracing enterprise information is mandatory to manage enterprises. Therefore, in this work there are identified and established different types of alignment relationships between the artifacts composing an Enterprise Architecture.

An enterprise engineering approach for the alignment of business and information technology strategy

Information systems and information technology (IS/IT, hereafter just IT) strategies usually depend on a business strategy. The alignment of both strategies improves their strategic plans. From an external perspective, business and IT alignment is the extent to which the IT strategy enables and drives the business strategy. This article reviews strategic alignment between business and IT, and proposes the use of enterprise engineering (EE) to achieve this alignment. The EE approach facilitates the definition of a formal dialog in the alignment design. In relation to this, new building blocks and life-cycle phases have been defined for their use in an enterprise architecture context. This proposal has been adopted in a critical process of a ceramic tile company for the purpose of aligning a strategic business plan and IT strategy, which are essential to support this process.

Performance measurement system for business processes

All companies need to know at what level and to what extent they are complying with their objectives. We present a system called PMS-BP (performance measurement system for business processes) which has been designed to define indicators and evaluate company performance. The system is used to measure performance through the integrated management of business processes and to define indicators or parameters at all levels of the company. It also detects the linkages that exist between parameters at different levels and associates them with the companys objectives and strategies through critical success factors. PMS-BP has been built around three components: a methodology, an architecture and a performance measurement structure. The interconnection between the different components makes it easy to constantly trace the relationships between the different performance measurement elements at different levels (enterprise, business entity, processes, etc.). Processes are analysed by means of different types of graphs which make it simple to read and interpret the entire context of the company. We describe a real-life case in which the PMS-BP was applied to an SME in the metal/mechanics sector.

Building a production planning process with an approach based on CIMOSA and workflow management systems

Nowadays, one of the major challenges for enterprises is to stay competitive in todays changing market environment. This can be supported by business process models which on one hand are consistent and adequate (requirement #1), and on the other hand can be enacted and operated in an easy, fast, straightforward and integrated way (requirement #2). The CIMOSA architecture provides the basis for business process modelling to fulfil both of the above requirements. It supports the creation of consistent process models and allows to identify almost all the information required for the development of a workflow model. These models can be implemented using one of the commercial workflow management systems. In this paper we present the methodology based on the CIMOSA architecture that we have developed to build a workflow model in ©Lotus Notes for the forecasting and production planning processes in a tiles manufacturing enterprise. The CIMOSA approach has also been used to design the necessary software applications for processing the information of the resulting workflow system.

Order promising process for extended collaborative selling chain

This paper presents a solution method that supports the order promising (OP) process of a product-pack (P-P) in an extended collaborative selling chain (ECOSELL) domain. A P-P is a group of products with complementary functions that can be jointly commercialised. The flexible dimensions of a P-P order request are the conventional ones (quantity, due date, delivery location and price) plus an additional dimension: the possibility of defining dependencies among the other flexible dimensions. Furthermore, the P-P products can belong to different supply chains that must be properly co-ordinated in order to provide a reliable response to the customer. These features make the P-P OP process more complex than the traditional one. Due to the lack of works on this topic, the first step consists of defining all possible P-P OP scenarios. A new three-tier solution method for the proper management of due date and delivery location quoting in all possible P-P OP scenarios is presented in this paper. Only the first tier is described in detail. Results derived from the application of the solution method to a pilot composed by two supply chains belonging to the ceramic and kitchen furniture sectors are also reported.

From UML or DFD models to CIMOSA partial models and enterprise components

Abstract The development of enterprise integration solutions requires the identification of core business processes, enterprise objects and their flows as well as essential resources and their use in day-to-day operations of an enterprise or of a network of enterprises. This paper focuses on the enterprise model creation process using the computer integrated manufacturing open system architecture (CIMOSA) modelling framework, assuming that the models of the enterprise environment to be analysed are available in the form of data flow diagrams (DFDs) or unified modelling language (UML) use cases. The method mostly concerns the development of partial models and the specification of enterprise components to support knowledge capitalization about the enterprise structure and operations. Not only information-oriented models (i.e. data schemas) are needed to support enterprise integration, but also models describing function, information, resource and organization aspects of the business. Planning and development of workflow applications also require such an approach. For these reasons, it is useful to start from DFDs or UML models, usually available in many companies or easy to draft from user explanations, and to adapt or extend them with the approach presented in the paper to plan enterprise integration projects or to analyse the business operations from an industrial engineering perspective.

Técnicas para el Modelado de Procesos de Negocio en Cadenas de Suministro

El presente articulo muestra una revision y evaluacion de las tecnicas y metodologias genericas de modelado de procesos de negocio mas populares y utilizadas en la literatura. El principal objetivo del estudio es la propuesta de una taxonomia de clasificacion de las tecnicas de modelado aplicadas a las caracteristicas propias de las cadenas de suministro, para facilitar la seleccion de las mas apropiadas. Para verificar la clasificacion, se describe un caso real de estudio en cadenas de suministro, en el que se relaciona una cadena de suministro del sector ceramico y una del sector del mueble. Del estudio realizado, se propone un metodo que incluye cuatro tecnicas para la representacion de las diferentes perspectivas de modelado en una cadena de suministro.