Enterprise Engineering and Integration in the Global Environment

Abstract

The challenges of global markets require new forms of enterprise organisation. Fluctuations in market demands, technology evolution and changing regula-tions require very flexible enterprise operations, capable of short time reac-tion. Decision-making in turn must be based on relevant and up-to-date ilifor-mation. These challenges are met by organising extended, virtual and agile enter-prises. Enterprise engineering and business-process-based decision support will play a major role. They will enable the forming of such enterprises by pro-viding analysis and evaluation of partner contributions to goals and objectives as well as supporting operation re-planning in the course of exceptions han-dling. The paper discusses enterprise engineering and integration as an enter-prise life-cycle oriented discipline. Different aspects like impact of organisa-tion paradigms, human roles and standardisation are presented. 1. INTRODUCTION Enterprises are rather complex systems which have to be managed for their internal affairs, but more importantly for their many relations in the different environments in which they operate. Global markets and global competition place very stringent requirements on enterprise organisations for their ability to meet these challenges. The most important ones are operational flexibility and adaptability. Reacting and even more acting in advance must be based on relevant and up-to-date information. It is this need for relevant information which becomes of paramount importance in the decision-making processes at all levels of enterprise management. Real-time information to support the establishment, deployment and discontinuation of inter-and intra-organisational relations is key for surviving and flourish in these very competitive markets of today. The challenges in decision support concern the identification of relevant infor-mation, easy access and its intelligent use. Building and maintaining the enterprise knowledge base and enabling its efficient use for decision support are major tasks of enterprise engineering. Enterprise integration and its subsequent operation in the global environment of customers, suppliers and regulatory bodies will heavily de-L. M. Camarinha-Matos et al. (eds.), Advances in Networked Enterprises