無 / The objective of this study is to establish a base for understanding inflexibility, with different kinds of integration problems being examined and explained. Studies of process integration have focused mostly on the design and management of efficient operation with information technology but very little on the difficulty in making changes with tightly linked processes. In order to eliminate risks of integration failure, there is a need for deep understanding of the types and causes of inflexibility with process integration. Based on the literature and industry experience of process integration and enterprise flexibility/inflexibility, this study proposes that inflexibility can be classified as either operational, organizational, or systems inflexibility. Sources of inflexibility have been investigated from views of business design, users’ willingness and capability, and systems designers’ designs. Cases studied shown that these three sources of inflexibility are interrelated and can reciprocally affect business performance. Companies applying process integration may eliminate the risk of integration downsides by carefully managing business design, user willingness and system design capability. Only with a broad and thorough view of the system, people and process interactions can a firm capitalize its investment in process integration.

Integration platforms such as Zapier and IFTTT allow users to create custom flows that link events taking place in one application to an action that should occur in another. With the help of these platforms, people are able to automate work that would have otherwise required manual input. Thanks to this, the mundane tasks of everyday life can be delegated to computers while people are allowed to be more productive with their time. The question is, how exactly does Zapier and IFTTT implement these integration solutions, and how do they compare? From the perspective of a company that seeks to publish their application to the catalogues of these platforms, one would be interested in knowing what specific problems these platforms can solve, how they are solved, and how the solution can be evaluated. One theoretical framework that can be applied in order to answer all of these questions is known as enterprise integration. The problem is that an analysis of Zapier and IFTTT through the context of enterprise integration does not exist. The purpose of this thesis was to create this analysis. By doing so, companies would be able to make more informed decisions as to the selection and use of these technologies. Action research methodology was used to gather qualitative, inductive data, through the implementation of five smaller scale projects. Each of the projects was an investigation into a common type of problem that enterprise integration is typically used to solve. For each project, a set of criteria that were also taken from enterprise integration were used in order to evaluate the implementation’s strengths and weaknesses. A statement as to which of these platforms is better than the other was not found. However, similarities and differences between the two were able to be determined. The results indicated that Zapier’s strengths came mostly from the fact that it offers developers more freedom than IFTTT does, but that IFTTT had strengths that came from its ability to offer reliable delivery without compromise, and that it allowed developers to create better solutions in multiple scenarios. Findings like these were found and expressed through enterprise integration. / Integrationsplattformar såsom Zapier och IFTTT låter användare skapa sina egna skräddarsydda flöden som sammankopplar händelser som uppstår i en applikation till en aktion som ska ta plats i en annan. Med hjälp av dessa plattformar så kan folk automatisera arbete som annars hade krävt manuellt input. Tack vare detta så kan banala vardagsaktiviteter delegeras till datorer medan folk tillåts att vara mer produktiva med sin tid. Frågan är, hur exakt är Zapier och IFTTT:s lösningar implementerade, och hur jämförs dem med varandra? Från ett företags perspektiv som vill publicera sin applikation till dessa plattformars kataloger så skulle man vara intresserad av att veta vilka specifika problem dessa plattformar kan lösa, hur dem kan lösas, och hur lösningen kan utvärderas. Ett teoretiskt ramverk som kan appliceras för att svara på alla dessa frågor är enterprise integration. Problemet är att en analys av Zapier och IFTTT från kontexten av enterprise integration inte existerar. Syftet med denna uppsats var därför att skapa denna analys. Genom att göra detta så kan företag ta mer informerade beslut med avseende på hur de väljer och använder sig utav dessa teknologier. Aktionsforskning användes för att hämta kvalitativ, induktiv data, genom implementeringen utav fem mindre projekt. Varje projekt var en undersökning av ett typiskt problem som enterprise integration typiskt används till för att lösa. För varje projekt användes en uppsättning av kriterium som även dessa var tagna ur enterprise integration, för att bedöma implementeringens styrkor och svagheter. En slutsats om vilket av dessa plattformar som är bättre än det andra drogs inte. Likheter och skillnader kunde dock bestämmas. Resultaten indikerade att Zapiers styrkor mestadels kom från det faktum att dem ger utvecklare mer frihet än vad IFTTT gör, men att IFTTT hade styrkor som kom från det faktum att dem kunde erbjuda garanterad leverans utan kompromisser, och att utvecklare kunde skapa bättre lösningar i flera scenarion. Upptäckter som dessa kunde hittas och uttryckas genom enterprise integration.

Presently the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global competition and ever changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Both, agility and reconfiguration are widely recognised as important attributes for manufacturing systems to satisfy the needs of competitive global markets. To facilitate and accommodate unforeseen business changes within the automotive industry, a new proactive methodology is urgently required for the design, build, assembly and reconfiguration of automation systems. There is also need for the promotion of new technologies and engineering methods to enable true engineering concurrency between product and process development. Virtual construction and testing of new automation systems prior to build is now identified as a crucial requirement to enable system verification and to allow the investigation of design alternatives prior to building and testing physical systems. The main focus of this research was to design and develop reconfigurable assembly systems within the powertrain sector of the automotive industry by capturing and modelling relevant business and engineering processes. This research has proposed and developed a more process-efficient and robust automation system design, build and implementation approach via new engineering services and a standard library of reusable mechanisms. Existing research at Loughborough had created the basic technology for a component based approach to automation. However, no research had been previously undertaken on the application of this approach in a user engineering and business context. The objective of this research was therefore to utilise this prototype method and associated engineering tools and to devise novel business and engineering processes to enable the component-based approach to be applied in industry. This new approach has been named Configurable and Collaborative Automation Systems (CO AS). In particular this new research has studied the implications of migration to a COAS approach in terms of I) necessary changes to the end-users business processes, 2) potential to improve the robustness of the resultant system and 3) potential for improved efficiency and greater collaboration across the supply chain.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T10:40:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CARLOS AUGUSTO DA SILVA CABRAL.pdf: 964217 bytes, checksum: f3567342428b984446b349a75b7f4a4b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-13 / Today, large companies are responding to market needs with the use of productive models based on Supply Chain Management. In this scenario the enterprise integration based on the Information Technology Systems is essential. This research addresses the integration of large companies in the state of Goiás with others in the production chain, and aims to classify the types of systems and integration of information technology used. The first part of the work consists of a literature exploratory research, which presents recent studies are addressing the integration between companies and the definition of its main elements. The second part demonstrates the methodological procedures used. The third part contains the data obtained in the survey. Introducing the relationships with other companies surveyed in the production chain, the mapping of the Information Systems Technology tools, systems for managing the supply chain and the association of data to the propositions . The results enabled to view and understand how the integration is in the surveyed companies. It was found that most companies not part of a Supply Chain Management and their relationships with other companies in their supply chains are based on traditional models of production. / Atualmente, as grandes empresas estão respondendo às necessidades do mercado com a utilização de modelos produtivos baseados na Gestão da Cadeia de Suprimentos. Nesse cenário a integração empresarial baseada em Sistemas de Tecnologia da Informação é essencial. Esta pesquisa aborda a integração de grandes empresas goianas com as demais da cadeia produtiva, na qual se pretende classificar os tipos de integração e os sistemas de Tecnologia da Informação utilizados. A primeira parte do trabalho é composta por uma pesquisa exploratória bibliográfica, em que se apresentam os estudos recentes estão abordando a integração entre empresas e a definição dos seus elementos principais. A segunda parte demonstra os procedimentos metodológicos utilizados. A terceira parte contém os dados obtidos na pesquisa. Apresentando os relacionamentos das empresas pesquisadas com as demais na cadeia produtiva, o mapeamento das ferramentas de Sistemas de Tecnologia da Informação, os sistemas para gestão da cadeia de suprimentos e a associação dos dados com as proposições. Os resultados obtidos possibilitaram visualizar e compreender como está a integração nas empresas pesquisadas. Constatou-se que a maioria empresas não faz parte de uma Gerência da Cadeia de Suprimentos (Supply Chain Management) e que seus relacionamentos com as demais empresas das suas cadeias produtivas são baseados em modelos tradicionais de produção.

In order to remain competitive, the integration of their information systems is an imperative for many large organisations. Applications that originally have been developed independently are now required to interoperate to support new or different functions of the enterprise. Although the mechanisms for application interoperation exist provided by the technology, due to the sheer number and complexity of the running systems, integration solutions � centralised or distributed�appropriate at the local level do not translate successfully to the whole enterprise. Centralised integration approaches often satisfy only some of the integration requirements, they are very expensive, and are fraught with danger since they imply an �all or nothing� approach. Distributed approaches, on the other hand, suffer from complexity and scalability problems as the number of system interfaces to be implemented and the number of execution-time invocations grows with the number of component applications. This dissertation makes a contribution to the field of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) within the framework of distributed systems technology. Based on real-life case studies experience, we present here a federated approach that controls the size and complexity of the integration effort by reusing existing systems as much as possible and reducing the number of interacting applications. Only selected local elements are exposed to the organisational milieu, and a consistent supporting infrastructure is provided to make systems interactions possible. Our approach provides a flexible and scalable strategy to enterprise integration, avoiding the shortcomings of traditional approaches. We respect existing organisational structures, and demonstrate how appropriate federation infrastructure and protocols enable the interoperation of existing systems. The three main facets of enterprise knowledge are systematically incorporated into the integration effort: a) by the use of domain ontologies to support data integration; b) by the development of a methodology to include business rules; and c) by the development of FEW, a federated workflow model to implement the business processes of the organisation.

Enterprise modelling can facilitate the design, analysis, control and construction of contemporary enterprises which can compete in world-wide Product markets. This research involves a systematic study of enterprise modelling with a particular focus on resource modelling in support of the life cycle engineering of enterprise systems. This led to the specification and design of a framework for resource modelling. This framework was conceived to: classify resource types; identify the different functions that resource modelling can support, with respect to different life phases of enterprise systems; clarify the relationship between resource models and other modelling perspectives provide mechanisms which link resource models and other types of models; identify guidelines for the capture of information - on resources, leading to the establishment of a set of resource reference models. The author also designed and implemented a resource modelling tool which conforms to the principles laid down by the framework. This tool realises important aspects of the resource modeffing concepts so defined. Furthermore, two case studies have been carried out. One models a metal cutting environment, and the other is based on an electronics industry problem area. In this way, the feasibility of concepts embodied in the framework and the design of the resource modelling tool has been tested and evaluated. Following a literature survey and preliminary investigation, the CIMOSA enterprise modelling and integration methodology was adopted and extended within this research. Here the resource modelling tool was built by extending SEWOSA (System Engineering Workbench for Open System Architecture) and utilising the CIMBIOSYS (CINI-Building Integrated Open SYStems) integrating infrastructure. The main contributions of the research are that: a framework for resource modelling has been established; means and mechanisms have been proposed, implemented and tested which link and coordinate different modelling perspectives into an unified enterprise model; the mechanisms and resource models generated by this research support each Pfe phase of systems engineering projects and demonstrate benefits by increasing the degree to which the derivation process among models is automated.

In almost each enterprise there is a software support for business processes. With a growing number of the applications there is an increasing demand to integrate those applications in order to have an effectively working environment, which generates profit. In enterprise applications integration there are few principles, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. However, the message-oriented middleware layer proves to be the best solution to many integration scenarios. This work deals with an enterprise of applications running on multifunction embedded office devices based on Java ME platform, and introduces an in-house developed communication middleware layer to integrate those applications. The resulting software component applies principles of messaging in a printing management SOA environment to communicate with a print server using a designed set of messages.

[pt] Esta tese apresenta uma sistemática participativa para propor políticas de design convergentes entre universidade e empresa, para o fomento da inovação do setor têxtil catarinense. Caracteriza-se como uma pesquisa-ação de caráter quantitativo e qualitativo. Investiga empresas do setor têxtil/confecção e instituições de ensino, participantes do projeto Santa Catarina Moda Contemporânea – SCMC, com relação à inovação, utilização do design e características da relação Universidade-Empresa. Os resultados indicam que há uma demanda de inovação e design. As empresas são inovadoras, desenvolvem atividades inovativas, mas o grau de novidade é baixo. A inovação dá-se principalmente por ações da própria empresa, estando as universidades ainda à margem desse processo. Embora recente, o design de moda está presente na maioria das empresas pesquisadas, que são de médio e grande porte. A pesquisa revelou, também, que os entraves, encontrados na relação Universidade-Empresa, podem estar associados tanto à dimensão da infraestrutura destas, quanto à dimensão psicossociológica e organizacional do próprio relacionamento. Estes dados foram trabalhados em um fórum, com a participação dos atores envolvidos e profissionais da moda. Neste evento, foram identificados, entre outros, os principais atributos de valor da cadeia têxtil/confecção de moda catarinense que devem ser explorados na política de design têxtil: ações cooperativas que exercitam a identidade local; fortalecimento da relação universidade/empresa/governo; criação de laboratórios experimentais; promoção do design local e gestão do conhecimento. O conjunto de elementos da pesquisa-ação possibilitou a formulação de indicadores teóricos, estrutural, estratégico e instrumental que podem nortear a política de design para a inovação. Conclui-se que a sistemática proposta, de definição participativa e convergente entre empresas e universidades, favorece o desenvolvimento de políticas de design para a inovação mais direcionadas às necessidades e potencialidades de uma região específica. Possibilita às pessoas serem ativas nas decisões que lhes dizem respeito, o que as leva a serem mais propensas a adotar novas formas e condutas à inovação. / [en] This thesis presents a systematic participatory to propose convergent design policies between university and company to foster innovation in the textile industry of Santa Catarina. It is characterized as an action research of quantitative and qualitative feature. It looks into companies in the textile / clothing department and educational institutions, the project participants of Santa Catarina Contemporary Fashion - SCMC, concerning innovation, use of design and features of the relationship university -company. The results indicate that there is a requirement for innovation and design. The companies are innovative in that they develop innovation activities, but novelty is low. Innovation takes place mainly by actions of the company itself, while the universities are still outside of this process. Although recent, fashion design is present in most of the surveyed companies, which are medium and large sized. The survey also revealed that the drawbacks found in the relationship university - company, may be associated with both the proportion of their infrastructure and the organizational plus psychosocial extent of their own relationship. These data were worked in a forum with the participation of actors and professionals involved in fashion. In this event, the key attributes of value of the textile / fashion chain business in Santa Catarina have been identified, among others, which must be explored in the policy of textile design: cooperative actions that exercise the local identity, strengthening of the relationship university / company / government; creation of experimental laboratories; promoting of the local design and the knowledge management. The set of elements of action research enabled the formulation of theoretical, structural, strategic and instrumental indicators that can guide policy design for innovation. We conclude that the systematic proposal, participatory and convergent setting between companies and universities, encourages the development of policies for design innovation directed towards the needs and potentials of a specific region .It enables people to be active in decisions that concern them, which leads them to be more likely to adopt new kinds of behavior and ways to innovation.

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Today, with various technology and business standards, organizations face rapid changes in both internal and external environments. To be able to rapidly respond to such changing environments, integration of software systems has entered among the top priorities of many organizations. However, despite extended use of software integration, methods for estimating the business value of implementing such integration are still missing. Besides presenting a conceptual model to define the benefits of systems integration and related causal relationships, this study proposes a method for measuring such benefits in monetary terms. In particular, we  demonstrate how a mathematical programming technique called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used to evaluate the business value of software integration. Our method is illustrated using data from 12 organizations. The results indicate significant productivity gains by integrating software systems, which represent the value of software integration in organizations.