This thesis explores the potential to unify three emerging disciplines: enterprise engineering, enterprise architecture and enterprise ontology. The current fragmentation that exists in literature on enterprise alignment and design constrains the development and growth of the emerging disciplines. Enterprises need to use a multi-disciplinary approach when they continuously align, design and re-design the enterprise. Although enterprises need to be aligned internally (across various enterprise facets), as well as externally (with the environment), most alignment approaches still focus on business-IT alignment, i.e. aligning the business operations with the information and communication technologies and systems of the enterprise. This study focuses on a popular business-IT alignment approach,called the foundation for execution approach, and its associated artefact, called the operating model. The study acknowledges the theoretical contribution of the operating model to establish the required level of business process integration and standardisation at an enterprise in delivering goods and services to customers. Highlighting the practical problems in selecting an operating model for an enterprise, and more specifically the practical problems of identifying process reuse potential at an enterprise, a thesis statement is formulated: The operating model concept, as part of a business-IT alignment approach, can be enhanced with a process reuse identification framework, when a business-IT alignment contextualisation is used. The study is divided into two research questions. The first research question addresses the current fragmentation that exists in the literature, which impairs reuse of the existing business-IT alignment knowledge base. An inductive literature review develops the Business-IT Alignment Model to provide a common contextualisation for current business-IT alignment approaches. The second research question addresses the practical problems of the operating model regarding the identification of process reuse potential at an enterprise. Applying the newly developed Business-IT Alignment Model as a contextualisation instrument, the study demonstrates the use of design research in developing the Process Reuse Identification Framework. The conclusion after the investigation of the two research questions is that the thesis statement was confirmed, i.e. the operating model concept, as part of a business-IT alignment approach, can be enhanced with a process reuse identification framework, when a business-IT contextualisation is used. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / Unrestricted

One of the tools used during re-engineering of an environment is the process model as modelling tool. The identification of process models within an institution is a difficult and tedious task. A problem is that often process model structures is identified for one specific project and not stored for future reuse. The ideal for institutions is to reuse process model structures within the institution. This study focused on the generic structures within the higher education application domain where the hypothesis for this study was that a generic educational process model structure for higher education institutions can be established; a process management flow procedure can be used to manage the flow within an educational process model; and that aneducational process model can be stored and reused in re-engineering efforts. The study was divided into three research questions, where the first focused on the identification of generic process model structures, the second on the usability of the process model structures within a re-engineering effort, and the last on the preservation of a process model structure. For the first research question, the identification of process model structures, three institutions were used for data collection. It was necessary to develop a requirements elicitation procedure for data collection. The structure derived was confirmed at a fourth institution. For the second research question, which focuses on the usability of process model structures, an ordinal measurement was defined to measure the usefulness of the process model structures in a reengineering effort. A re-engineering procedure was developed for re-engineering the application domain, called the process management flow procedure, and used for a re-engineering effort at one institution. Lastly, for the third research question the preservation of the process model structures, the abstraction of the process model structure was investigated as well as the feasibility of implementing the process model structures physically using existing repository software. The conclusion after the investigation of the three research questions was that the hypothesis was confirmed that there is indeed a set of process model structures within the higher education institution that are generic, preservable and reusable in a re-engineering effort. / Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)

One of the tools used during re-engineering of an environment is the process model as modelling tool. The identification of process models within an institution is a difficult and tedious task. A problem is that often process model structures is identified for one specific project and not stored for future reuse. The ideal for institutions is to reuse process model structures within the institution. This study focused on the generic structures within the higher education application domain where the hypothesis for this study was that a generic educational process model structure for higher education institutions can be established; a process management flow procedure can be used to manage the flow within an educational process model; and that aneducational process model can be stored and reused in re-engineering efforts. The study was divided into three research questions, where the first focused on the identification of generic process model structures, the second on the usability of the process model structures within a re-engineering effort, and the last on the preservation of a process model structure. For the first research question, the identification of process model structures, three institutions were used for data collection. It was necessary to develop a requirements elicitation procedure for data collection. The structure derived was confirmed at a fourth institution. For the second research question, which focuses on the usability of process model structures, an ordinal measurement was defined to measure the usefulness of the process model structures in a reengineering effort. A re-engineering procedure was developed for re-engineering the application domain, called the process management flow procedure, and used for a re-engineering effort at one institution. Lastly, for the third research question the preservation of the process model structures, the abstraction of the process model structure was investigated as well as the feasibility of implementing the process model structures physically using existing repository software. The conclusion after the investigation of the three research questions was that the hypothesis was confirmed that there is indeed a set of process model structures within the higher education institution that are generic, preservable and reusable in a re-engineering effort. / Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)