This study develops a systems integration project scheduling model which identifies the assignment of activity responsibilities that minimizes expected project implementation cost, considering the project risk. Assignment of resources to the individual jobs comprising the project is a persistent problem in project management. Mostly, skilled labor is an essential resource and both the time and the cost incurred to perform a job depend on the resource to which job is assigned. A systems integration project includes implementation issues in the areas of shipping, installation, and commissioning. Implementation problems lead to project delays, increased costs, and decreased performance, leading to customer dissatisfaction with the systems integrator. Activities can be performed in one of three ways: by the integrator, by the customer, or jointly between the integrator and customer. In this study we select the performer (mode) of each activity comprising the project network while taking into consideration the varying cost, duration and extreme event probability of each activity among different modes-integrator, joint work and customer. Use of the model will permit customers and integrators to mutually agree on an appropriate assignment of responsibilities in the contract. Systems integrators can also use the model to improve their implementation services offerings. An experimental design and a Monte-Carlo simulation study were conducted to see the effects of the parameters of the problem on the selection of modes.

Across many domains, systems suppliers are challenged by the complexity of their systems and the speed at which their systems must be changed in order to meet the needs of customers or the societies which the systems support. Stakeholder needs are ever more complex: appearing, disappearing, changing and interacting faster than solutions able to address them can be instantiated. Similarly, the systems themselves continually change as a result of both external and internal influences, such as damage, changing environment, upgrades, reconfiguration, replacement, etc. In the event of situations unforeseen at design time, personnel (for example maintainers or operators) close to the point of employment may have to modify systems in response to the evolving situation, and to do this in a timely manner so that the system and/or System-of-Systems (SoS: a set of systems that have to interoperate) can achieve their aims. This research was motivated by the problem of designing-in re-configurability to the constituent systems of a SoS to enable the SoS and its systems to effectively and efficiently counter the effects of unforeseen events that adversely affect fitness-for purpose whilst operational. This research shows that a SoS does not achieve or maintain fitness-for-purpose because it cannot implement the correct, timely and complete transfer of Material, Energy and Information (MEI) between its constituents and with its external environment that is necessary to achieve a desired outcome; i.e. the purpose.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:53:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CesarABS_DISSERT.pdf: 1492389 bytes, checksum: 7dd981d1593ae45098ed7a3e34f7801c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-09-18 / Atualmente, um dos aspectos da gest?o da informa??o que se encontra em evid?ncia ? o da arquitetura empresarial, entendida como o conjunto de pol?ticas e escolhas t?cnicas de padroniza??o e integra??o para viabilizar as estrat?gias de neg?cios da organiza??o. Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo analisar a integra??o de dois sistemas de gest?o na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) a partir das lentes da arquitetura empresarial. A influ?ncia dessa abordagem induz a organiza??o a desenvolver um alicerce de execu??o com o interesse de suportar com maior efici?ncia sua estrat?gia e obter agilidade em seus processos de neg?cio. A an?lise da integra??o desses dois sistemas, atrav?s de entrevistas semiestruturadas, no ?mbito da UFRN possibilitou a percep??o da necessidade de uma estrutura??o dos processos de TI a partir de uma arquitetura que favore?a um melhor alinhamento das capacidades de TI aos objetivos da organiza??o. A aus?ncia de um modelo operacional pode comprometer a efici?ncia do Sistema Integrado de Gest?o das Atividades Acad?micas (SIGAA) da UFRN na realiza??o do seu objetivo como plataforma ?nica de gest?o das informa??es da universidade

S’appuyant sur une approche comparative et historique au niveau de la firme, cette thèse étudie les dynamiques de la réussite économique à long terme de la construction d'avions civils aux Etats-Unis et en Europe. Cette analyse est menée à partir de l’étude d’Airbus et de Boeing qui sont les deux plus grandes firmes du secteur aéronautique au niveau mondial. La thèse identifie les conditions sociales qui influencent les capacités concurrentielles des deux firmes et les pratiques qui jouent un rôle sur l’amélioration ou la dégradation des capacités productives de leur secteur à travers un cadre analytique basé sur les modèles productifs / les modèles d’affaires (productive/business models). Les trois éléments majeurs de l’activité productive au niveau de la firme, à savoir la stratégie d’entreprise, la structure organisationnelle et le degré d’engagement financier sont analysés dans ce cadre appliqué à l’intégration de systèmes. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent qu’il existe une forte corrélation entre la sous-traitance massive, la financiarisation des stratégies d’entreprise et les relations conflictuelles de travail. L’évolution des stratégies d’Airbus et de Boeing et leur influence sur l’amélioration ou la dégradation de leurs capacités productives sont fortement liées aux transformations dans le domaine financier et dans l’organisation productive / les relations industrielles qui caractérisent les économies occidentales depuis les trois dernières décennies. Les conséquences des actions menées par les entreprises sur la promotion de l’emploi dans leur(s) pays d’origine sont questionnées et des implications en termes de stratégies d’entreprise et de politiques publiques sont tirées de cette thèse. / This dissertation analyzes the dynamics of long-term success in commercial aircraft manufacturing in the US and Europe performed through a historical-comparative methodology employed for firm level analysis. The firm-level case studies are Airbus and Boeing, the two biggest firms in the commercial aircraft manufacturing industry. Through an analytical framework concentrated on business/productive models of corporate activity, the study identifies the social conditions that influence the competitive capabilities of these two companies and their practices in upgrading, or downgrading, the productive capabilities of their respective industries. The three main elements of firm-level productive activity under modern capitalism, namely corporate strategy, organizational structure and financial commitment are analyzed through the lens of the systems-integration business/productive model framework. The results of the research show that there is a strong correlation between extensive outsourcing, financialization of business strategies and conflicting employment relations. Distinct constructive and destructive processes of corporate strategies of Airbus and Boeing are strongly linked to the role of the transformations of finance and work organization/industrial relations in the last three decades in Western economies. The consequences of corporate action on the promotion of secure jobs with positive prospects for their respective economies are questioned and relevant implications are drawn for business and government policy.

E-government, electronic Public Administration, has led to streamlined work processes within and between government departments. As theories of administration and management seek to improve processes, electronic administration seeks to improve electronic processes in an effort to provide efficient services. The unique contribution of this study on Public Administration and the related e-government initiatives of the Government Employees Pension Fund is that none of this research has been documented before. Whilst e-government is not new, its application to the Government Employees Pension Fund is novel. E-government espouses integrated partnerships between governments and e-citizens by creating an understanding of electronic relationships between and within organisations. The thesis considers electronic Public Administrative service delivery in the Government Employees Pension Fund as it relates to civil pensions administration. Successful e-government needs a critical mass of users that is central to ensuring its sustainable and successful utilisation. If a critical mass of users is not ensured then e-government initiatives will not be successful. Attempts by the Government Employees Pension Fund to develop a customer relationship management approach are assessed. Sustainable and successful e-service delivery is about providing multi-nodal access to clients. An interactive web site, amongst others, will allow clients to access services remotely. Seamless government is developed around customers’ needs and is outward looking since it provides a single access point for all services offered by government. Gaining access to information and communications technologies is a challenge that many face, hence the digital divide is a stymieing factor in providing seamless, successful e-government services. Not all e-government initiatives are successful. Information and communications technology initiatives are not always implemented according to planned timelines and budgets. The case of the Government Employees Pension Fund proved to be no different given that not all the e-government initiatives embarked upon were successful. / Thesis (PhD (Public Affairs))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) / unrestricted

Growing enterprises have growing amounts of information. Making sure that this information is easily accessible to its employees is not an easy task. For this task Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems come in handy. However, the ERP systems contain lots of information and may be too complex to handle this information or may be too slow in sharing this information within the organisation. This thesis introduces a new solution for how mobile applications can connect to an ERP system by exploiting database synchronisation, which allows the employees to get the information wherever they are without the need to directly access the ERP system. There are three important questions in this thesis: how the ERP works, how to build a mobile application and, how to build a back end? By combining answers to these questions a whole system is built which is production ready and can copy data between the ERP system and the back end and show the information in a mobile application. The overarching goals were to build a system that could extract data from the ERP system into a proprietary back end and a mobile application that could synchronise with the back end. However, synchronisation between the mobile application and the back end was not implemented due to lack of time. The back end had to be able to scale up to 500 concurrent users and respond within 3 seconds, both of these goals were achieved. The mobile application that was built to display the information to the end user was built with usability in mind, since Netlight wanted a straightforward application that anyone could use. The mobile application was shown to have good usability. The results of this thesis project show that building systems around ERPs, instead of inside them, gives these systems the ability to scale, improved the implementation time, and reduced the company’s maintenance efforts. / Växande företag får mer och mer information. Att kunna se till att den informationen blir enkelt tillgänglig för alla inom företaget är inte nödvändigtvis lätt. Det är ofta det som affärssystem kan användas till, dock innehåller affärssystem väldigt mycket information och kan vara för komplexa för att enkelt kunna hantera information man är intresserad av. Det kan även uppstå problem i prestanda i och med storleken på affärssystemet. I det här examensarbetet föreslås ett nytt sätt för hur mobila applikationer kan integreras med affärssystem genom att synkronisera mot dess databas, vilket tillåter anställda att komma åt informationen vart de än befinner sig. I det här examensarbetet finns det tre olika delar som är intressanta, hur affärssystemet fungerar, hur man bygger en mobilapplikation och hur man bygger ett back end. Genom att kombinera kunskapen från ovan nämnda delar, byggdes systemet som är redo för produktion och kan synkronisera data från affärssystemet till back endet, samt att visa upp informationen i mobilapplikationen. De översiktliga målen var att bygga ett system som kunde extrahera data från affärssystemet till ett eget byggt back end och en mobilapplikation som kunde synkronisera med detta back end. Dock blev synkroniseringen mellan mobilapplikationen och back endet aldrig implementerat. Back endet skulle även kunna skala upp till 500 samtidiga användare och då kunna svara inom 3 sekunder, vilket man lyckades med. Mobilapplikationen som byggdes för att visa information byggdes med användbarhet i tankarna, eftersom Netlight ville ha en enkel mobilapplikation som vem som helst skulle kunna använda. Mobilapplikationen analyserades fram till att vara användarvänlig. Detta examensarbete visar på att det går att bygga system runt affärssystem istället för att bygga dem i affärssystemen, vilket möjliggör att systemet kan skala upp bättre, mindre tid för implementation samt mindre underhåll.

Integration ist eine fortwährende Aufgabe in betrieblichen Informationssystemen. Durch den Einsatz verschiedener personeller und maschineller Aufgabenträger kommt es zu wiederkehrenden Integrationsproblemen, die vorrangig durch externe Dienstleister gelöst werden. Das zentrale Problem dieser Arbeit ist, dass in der Wissenschaft diskutiertes Lösungswissen in Form von Mustern existiert, aber keinen Eingang in die Praxis findet. Um dieses Problem zu untersuchen, wurde eine qualitative empirische Untersuchung durchgeführt, welche erstmals im deutschsprachigen Raum Wirkungszusammenhänge und Entscheidungsmechanismen in Integrationsprojekten analysiert. Als Ergebnis der qualitativen Erhebung kann festgehalten werden, dass dem Dienstleistungscharakter der Integration bisher zu wenig Beachtung geschenkt wurde und dass Integrationsmuster nicht eingesetzt werden, weil der Abstraktionsgrad des so konservierten Lösungswissens nicht zum Abstraktionsgrad der Problemstellungen passt. Deshalb definiert die Arbeit zunächst ein Dienstleistungsmodell der Integration, welches sich auf die empirische Untersuchung stützt. Danach wird auf der Grundla-ge einer eigenschaftsbasierten Definition von Integrationsmustern eine Grundmenge an Mustern aus der Literatur extrahiert, die weiter abstrahiert werden. Als Abstraktionsprinzipien werden die Klassifikation und die Generalisierung eingesetzt. Abstrakte Integrationsmuster können als Ressourcen in ein Dienstleistungsmodell eingehen. Für die Klassifikation wurde ein erweiterbares und flexibles Klassifikationsverfahren – die Facettenklassifikation – gewählt. Diese ermöglicht jederzeit das Hinzufügen weiterer Facetten. Die Einordnung eines Musters muss nur innerhalb einer Facette disjunkt sein, es kann aber in andere Facetten eingeordnet werden. Die verwendeten Facetten entstammen sowohl dem Problem als auch dem Lösungsbereich. Jeder Facette liegt eine umfassende Analyse zugrunde. Die Klassifikation bildet den Ausgangspunkt der erneuten Generalisierung. Muster mit ähnlichen bzw. identischen Ausprägungen werden erfasst und auf ein gemeinsames Konzept untersucht. Diese Generalisierung wurde exemplarisch für zwei Mustergruppen durchgeführt. Dabei wurden die beiden abstrakten Integrationsmuster „zusätzlicher Zugriffspunkt“ sowie „Vermittler“ identifiziert. Die entwickelten Konzepte flossen in eine umfangreiche Evaluation ein, welche am Beispiel einer konkreten Dienstleistung im Bereich der E-Procurement-Integration durchgeführt wurde. Die Unabhängigkeit der Bewertung konnte dadurch sichergestellt werden, dass weder der Dienstleister noch der Kunde an der zuvor durchgeführten empirischen Untersuchung beteiligt waren. Der erarbeitete Lösungsvorschlag wurde in einer Laborumgebung implementiert. Das vollständige Integrationsszenario ist dabei auf der Basis einer Virtualisierungsumgebung realitätsnah nachgebildet worden. Neben Instanzen der Kundensysteme mit identischem Versions- und Patch-Stand kamen auch Datenbestände aus Produktivsystemen zum Einsatz. Die Integrationshilfsmittel wurden ebenfalls in der Laborumgebung eingerichtet. Durch abstrakte Integrationsmuster verbessert sich die Dienstleistungserbringung. Auf der Kundenseite bewirkt dies eine Verbesserungen der Integrations- und Unternehmensarchitektur sowie die Erschließung weiteren Verbesserungspotenzials. Für den Dienstleister ergibt sich neben einem veränderten Dienstleistungsmodell vor allem die Möglichkeit, einmalige Angebote in ein konfigurierbares Standarddienstleistungsangebot zu überführen. Zusätzlich kann eine verbesserte Ressourcennutzung (vor allem der Humanressourcen) anhand des veränderten Dienstleistungsmodells nachgewiesen werden. Im Rahmen der Arbeit konnte so ein Ansatz entwickelt werden, der die empirisch belegten Abstraktionsprobleme behebt und die Einsetzbarkeit von bestehendem Lösungswissen verbessert. Gleichzeitig werden die Wirkungsmechanismen und Entscheidungszusammenhänge durch das Dienstleistungsmodell besser erfass-, erklär- und vor allem planbar.

Most organizations today understand the valuable contribution employees as people (rather than simply bodies) provide to their overall performance. Although efforts are made to make the most of the human in organizations, there is still much room for improvement. Focus in the reduction of employee injuries such as cumulative trauma disorders rose in the 80 s. Attempts at increasing performance by addressing employee satisfaction through various methods have also been ongoing for several years now. Knowledge Management is one of the most recent attempts at controlling and making the best use of employees knowledge. All of these efforts and more towards that same goal of making the most of people s performance at work are encompassed within the domain of the Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics field. HFE/E provides still untapped potential for organizational performance as the human and its optimal performance are the reason for this discipline s being. Although Human Factors programs have been generated and implemented, there is still the need for a method to help organizations fully integrate this discipline into the enterprise as a whole. The purpose of this research is to develop a method to help organizations integrate HFE/E into it business processes. This research begun with a review of the ways in which the HFE/E discipline is currently used by organizations. The need and desire to integrate HFE/E into organizations was identified, and a method to accomplish this integration was conceptualized. This method consisted on the generation of two domain-specific ontologies (a Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics ontology, and a Business ontology), and mapping the two creating a concept map that can be used to integrate HFE/E into businesses. The HFE/E ontology was built by generating two concept maps that were merged and then joined with a HFE/E discipline taxonomy. A total of four concept maps, two ontologies and a taxonomy were created, all of which are contributions to the HFE/E, and the business- and management-related fields.

No description available.

Este trabalho avalia o grau em que a integração de sistemas de informação tem atendido ao desenvolvimento de bens de capital com engenharia sob encomenda, com base em objetivos de desempenho para o processo de desenvolvimento de produtos. Descreve uma investigação, realizada por meio de pesquisa-ação, sobre o ambiente de desenvolvimento de produtos em uma indústria de bens de capital, conduzida sob a perspectiva organizacional e da tecnologia da informação. Objetiva aumentar a difusão deste tipo de informação para os profissionais deste ramo de atividade e comunidade científica, bem como servir como base para pesquisas e ações de melhoria para a empresa estudada. Focaliza a relevância da caracterização de um modelo de referência para o processo de desenvolvimento de produtos que otimize as atividades de tomada de decisão, controle de fluxo de trabalho, armazenamento de informações e documentos e retro-alimentação de informações em ambientes com engenharia sob encomenda. Apresenta os desafios enfrentados pela empresa estudada quanto à estabilização dos seus processos após uma ampla reformulação da aplicação de sistemas de informação, abordando elementos de sua dinâmica organizacional e diagnosticando o comportamento destes elementos diante das integrações executadas. Aborda ainda os aspectos humanos envolvidos neste segmento, considerando-os como fatores críticos para a aplicação e desenvolvimento de soluções / This work evaluates the support level offered by integrated information systems to engineered-to-order development of capital goods, based on the product development process performance objectives. It describes an investigation, performed by means of an action-research, about the product development environment in a capital goods industry, carried out under the organizational and information technology perspectives. It aims to increase the diffusion of this kind of information among the professionals in this production segment and scientific community, as well to serve as a research and improvement actions base to the studied company. The work focuses on the relevance of a reference model characterization to the product development process in order to optimize the decision making activities, workflow control, document and information storage and feedback in engineering-to-order environments. It presents the challenges faced by the studied company to reach the processes stabilization after a broad changeover of its information systems applications, analyzing its dynamics organizational elements and making a diagnosis of these elements behaviour, considering the achieved integration. It still analyzes the human aspects involved in this industry segment, considering these aspects as critical factors for solutions development and application