Enterprise systems engineering

Elements

There are four important elements in order for enterprise system engineering to work. It includes development through adaption, strategic technical planning, enterprise governance and ESE processes (with different stages).

Development through adaptation

Development through adaptation is a justified way to compromise with the problems and obstacles in complex systems. As time goes by, the environment will change and it needs adaptation in order to develop continuously. To develop through adaption, it experiences different stages. For example, mobile phone has gone through quite a few adaptations in its evolutionary development from the past. When it first released, the size of the phone is enormous, while since the generation changes, phone becomes smaller. Also, it developed from 1G to 4G for wireless network which makes everything goes quicker and faster and more convenient. To sum up, it refers to the process of composing a diversity of innovative ideas and choices to the enterprise and select the one that will be successful for the next generation.

Strategic technical planning

Strategic technical planning (STP) gives the enterprise the picture of their aim and objectives in the future and also an assessment on the process of organization. It brings a balance of assimilation and modernization to the enterprise. It has different components for STP.

Enterprise governance

It is defined as 'The set of responsibilities and practices exercised by the board and executive management with the goal of providing strategic direction, ensuring that objectives are achieved, ascertaining that risks are managed appropriately and verifying that the organisation’s resources are used responsibly.' according to (CIMA Official Terminology, 2005). Enterprise governance includes two aspects which are corporate governance (conformance) and business governance (performance). It is essential to understand the company and to know what must be done in order to succeed. It allows us to make the right decision on the choice of CEO and executives for the company, and also to identify the risks of the company.

Processes

There are four different steps in the Enterprise system engineering process. It includes technology planning (TP), capabilities-based engineering analysis (CBEA), enterprise architecture (EA) and enterprise analysis and assessment (EA&A).

Technology planning

It is a step that searching and looking for key technologies for the enterprise. The aim of this step is to determine and associate all the innovative ideas and choose the technology that are useful for the enterprise to develop in a sustainable way.

Technology needs

We have to identify and look for the trend of the technology to decide what technology the company needs. It is important to understand what each of the technology can be achieved and will the characteristic of the technology fits in the company well. There are loads of technology-based decision need to be taken by the company such as deciding which computers to use, which software is suitable and useful for the company, how to build up a system to back up all the customer data or essential statistics for the company with high security.

Capabilities-based engineering analysis

It is an analysis method that focus on the essential elements that whole enterprise needs. It is a scheme that target the innovation and evolution of the capabilities. There is a set of essential steps for the analysis. The activities are dependent and it is conducted iteratively.

Purpose formulation

Exploratory analysis

Evolutionary planning

Enterprise architecture

It is a model that illustrates the vision, network and framework of an organization. There are four aspects according to Microsoft's Michael Platt which are the prospective of business, application, information and technology. The diagram beside shows that structure of the Enterprise Architecture. The benefits of this step are improvement of the decision making for enterprise, increases the efficiency on the IT aspects and also minimize the loss of the organization.

All the elements are dependent and rely on each other in order to build the infrastructure.

Enterprise analysis and assessment

Enterprise analysis and assessment aim to find out if the enterprise is going to the right direction and help to do the correct decisions for the organization. It is strong advise to link with enterprise opportunity and risk assessment. There are also qualities that are required for this step such as aware of the suitable and capable technologies, to know and understand about C2 (Command and Control) issues and also the background picture of Modeling and simulation.

There are various activities and actions for this event.

1. Multi-scale analysis
2. Early and continuous war fighter operational assessment
3. Lightweight, portable M&S-based C2 capability representations
4. Developmental software versions available for assessment
5. Minimal infrastructure
6. Flexible modeling and simulation (M&S), operator-in-the-loop (OITL), and hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) capabilities
7. In-line, continuous performance monitoring and selective forensics.

Traditional systems engineering (TSE)

TSE refers to traditional systems engineering, which is a term to be defined as an engineering sub-system.

TSE

There are differences between TSE and ESE. There are survey results comparing both of them. The survey result shown that TSE and ESE is complementary and interdependent with each other which ESE has a higher rating while TSE could also be a hidden element for ESE. So the combination of TSE and ESE will be ideal for an enterprise in this generation.

Applications

There are two types of ESE application: Information Enterprise Systems Engineering and Social Enterprise Systems Engineering.

Information Enterprise Systems Engineering (IESE)

It is a system that builds up to meet the requirements and expectations of different stakeholders in the organization. There must be an input device to collect the information and output device to satisfy the information needs.

There are three different aspects for the framework of IESE

1. Functional View
2. Topology View
3. Physical View

Also, there are different rules for the IESE model.

Social Enterprise System Engineering

This is a framework that involves planning, analyzing, mapping and drawing a network of the process for enterprises and stakeholders. Moreover, it creates social value for entrepreneurship and explores and focuses on the social and societal issues. It forms a connection between social enterprise and system engineering. There is a Social Enterprise Systems Engineering V-model, in which two or more social elements are established based on the system engineering framework—for example, more social interface analysis that reviews stakeholders' requirements, and more activities and interactions between stakeholders to exchange opinions.

Opportunity and risk management

There are opportunities and risks in ESE and they have to be aggressive in seeking opportunities and also finding ways to avoid or minimize the risks. Opportunity is a trigger element that may lead to the accomplishment of objectives. Risk is a potential occurrence and will affect the performance of the entire system. There are several reasons for the importance of risk management.

1. To identify the risks before head which can prepare actions to prevent or minimize the risks
2. Since risks can cost the enterprise, determining the risk events can reduce the amount of loss
3. Help to know how to allocate the human or technology resources in order avoid the most critical risks

There are few steps in Enterprise risk and opportunity Management Process