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The evolution of enterprise services is changing the approach for enabling Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) business processes. Enabling systems are migrating to process- and service-oriented solutions. In particular, the paper demonstrates how the new technologies can be used to enable a critical process that links vehicle health maintenance to PLM. Our hypothesis is that Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) and PLM integration is achievable through composite application design. The key process for linking CBM to PLM must convert prognostic and diagnostic information into actionable information that can be directed into a project-level PLM environment that supports the end-to-end product improvement process. To test this hypothesis, we designed a composite application within the context of a Small Business Innovative Research project that is sponsored by the US government. This paper motivates the problem from the strategic level to the implementation level and describes the successful test of the hypothesis.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a common understanding of service‐oriented concepts to enable unambiguous discussion around service‐oriented architecture (SOA). Managers often have limited understanding of SOA, and for some reason, technologists seem to have difficulty explaining the concept using terminology and analogies that managers can understand. This paper addresses the long‐standing communications gap between managers and technologists as they attempt to evaluate how SOA or SOA‐related investments can add business value.Design/methodology/approachThe approach for this paper is to state the problem between managers and technologists and then provide concepts to break down the communication barrier. The paper then goes on to provide an argument for an optimal approach for SOA implementation and investment that meets management requirements.FindingsUnless SOA can be aligned to business processes, it will be viewed as a risky proposition that adds to cost without directly addressing business needs.Practical implicationsManagers need to understand the differing SOA points‐of‐view and what they mean for business performance. If one has difficulty in implementing ERP, then one will have more difficulty in implementing SOA. It is the responsibility of management to understand how these SOA‐related concepts impact the business, if for no other reason than that they are costly and risky. Of course, the concepts vary in cost and complexity, but they all vary in benefit potential to the business.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper can be noted by the fact that confusion around SOA approaches between managers and technologists still exists. This paper seeks to eliminate that widespread confusion by presenting service‐oriented concepts in an unbiased, holistic view.

PurposeThis paper aims to automate the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model as an enabler for process‐oriented supply chain business intelligence.Design/methodology/approachThe hypothesis is the following: SCOR model automation is possible using data that is directly extracted from integrated enterprise systems. To test the hypothesis, an alignment product that allows the SCOR model to be automated with information that is directly extracted from the Oracle E‐Business Suite was developed.FindingsIn order to achieve the full benefits from the SCOR model, effective business process management and the SCOR key performance indicators (KPIs) must be implemented and used. Unless data collection to support KPI construction is automated, it is difficult to institutionalize the SCOR model as a measurement and benchmarking framework. We have demonstrated that automated support for KPIs is feasible and achievable.Research limitations/implicationsThe E‐Business Suite is a single enterprise solution, but we assert that the same procedures could be followed with other enterprise solutions or even applied in a legacy system environment.Originality/valueThe developed solution described in the paper can immediately be applied to the design, development, and deployment of corporate performance management systems.

The evolution of Enterprise Services is changing the approach for enabling capability delivery. Enabling systems continue to migrate to process- and service-oriented solutions, requiring new approaches for architecting composite solutions. This paper presents, using examples from our work, the state-of-the art in architecting end-to-end solutions for delivering logistics capability from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to the customer. The topic is important, because the implementation paradigm is shifting from families of interfaced systems to process-oriented composite applications, and many analysts are predicting that this new system integration paradigm will prevail. This transition is well underway in the private sector and is in the early stages of transition in the public sector. The paper provides a review of new service-oriented concepts within the context of some implementation projects in the USA. The paper also demonstrates how emerging methodologies, methods, and tools are used to support the implementation of composite applications, as well as the limitations or working in a mixed legacy/modern environment during the lengthy transition period to the new service-oriented computing paradigm.

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a clarification of the meaning of the term integration.Design/methodology/approachA taxonomy of integration definitions derived from the academic and trade literature is developed, analyzed, and documented.FindingsIntegration is a word that is commonly used when discussing enterprise applications. The term integration is inserted in technical papers, e‐mail messages, correspondence, proposals, and even causal conversations. After many years of project work, and many misunderstandings and failed meetings and workshops, it can only be stated that the word has multiple and misunderstood meanings. For technical papers (research and trade), the term must be provided with context, or it is impossible to have a meaningful conversation. Next, multiple alternative definitions (that are valid in the literature for the appropriate context) are presented and explained in some detail.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is not exhaustive, since new definitions of integration may exist or may emerge.Originality/valueThe main contribution of the paper is that it yields clarity on a key term that is frequently used in information systems research. The paper is useful to any researchers or practitioners who are focused on enterprise system implementation.

PurposeThis paper seeks to describe the evolution of SAP implementation methodologies and tools, in particular, Value SAP, with a focus on the Accelerated SAP (ASAP) implementation methodology and its evolution as a part of SAP's new Solution Manager tool.Design/methodology/approachThe general approach is more focused on monitoring and managing an ongoing SAP implementation project using an enterprise solution architecture. Three options are explored.FindingsFinds that one option supports end‐to‐end business process management – other options can be managed, but with cost and risk.Originality/valueThis paper has reviewed the latest developments in SAP implementation methodologies from a management orientation. The issues in this paper are often taken for granted by researchers, so it is hoped that the focus on these issues will elevate interests in pursuing some of the unanswered questions.

Further data are presented on the efficacy of our SAP process‐oriented research methodology, which focuses on analyzing collaboration across multiple overlapping SAP solutions. Looks at three SAP projects currently being implemented in the US Navy. The projects focus on aviation weapon system program management, aviation supply and maintenance, and naval maritime maintenance. Collaboration was complex and difficult to achieve, given the scope of the project but desirable if it was cost‐effective. The research hypothesis was that development and execution of a methodology for analyzing the gaps and overlaps across multiple SAP software instances to assess collaboration or convergence potential were possible. It was concluded that collaboration was not cost‐effective, and that the three projects should be merged into two SAP solutions (both solutions were version 4.6c of the R/3 software). Results did not provide a general approach for merging SAP projects, but an analytical approach that could be used to analyze convergence possibilities for stand‐alone SAP solutions is provided. It is not believed that a general approach is achievable. There are millions of configuration possibilities and many unique project characteristics. Hence the analytical approach is somewhat general but general convergence principles are beyond the scope of this research.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is engaged in a multi‐year transformation of logistics planning and execution, known as the Future Logistics Enterprise (FLE). It is currently being defined in policy documents and an implementation plan known as the Future Logistics Architecture (FLA). The systems strategy for the FLE is still emerging, but it is anticipated that commercial standard software will play a significant role in the enablement of the new logistics business processes. A number of products are available for implementation, but this paper focuses on mySAP.com from SAP AG. We show the strategy for aligning the SAP reference hierarchy and the associated reference business process models with the FLA. The result of the mapping and associated analysis is an SAP reference model for the FLE, which can be used as a guide for the software vendor for future product development strategies. This paper reports on the development of the FLA, its alignment with mySAP.com and the development of the SAP reference model.

The management of the US Department of Defense (DoD) enterprise must change. Years of under‐funding have led to a wide gap between enterprise support requirements and resources. Private sector firms have faced similar choices. This paper shows how the public enterprise can be changed. Our hypothesis is that private sector implementations of standard software will lead to increased effectiveness and efficiency in public sector organizations. Sufficient detail is provided on how to transition to a modern integrated public sector enterprise, and the steps for implementing such a project are outlined, following standard private sector implementation practices. To explain the problem and solution, the DoD installation management enterprise is used as an example.

This paper modifies and interprets Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) using a linear economic model. This approach is similar to the cone input/output and assurance region approaches to DEA, but it is implemented so that the multipliers are measured in the same units across all linear optimization problems. This approach allows one to interpret alternatives as profit maximizing organizations and the DEA multipliers as prices that are comparable across the alternatives. This is a useful extension of the assurance region concept, but more important, is that our approach enhances communication with decision-makers. The improved communication is illustrated by applying the model to the siting of a long-term health care facility. This application is interesting because the multiplier bounds make practical sense, and because the problem has dimensions that sometimes lead to interpretation problems with the traditional DEA model. For example, the site characteristics do not result from coordinated decisions, some s...

Business process management has received much attention in the industrial engineering and management literature, and its benefits are well known. Much less has been written in the public sector management literature, and what has been written has been very general. Hence, there is confusion among public managers about how business process management concepts should be implemented. How should public organizations reorganize to accommodate business process management? How are existing or new enterprise systems aligned with business process management methodologies? This paper addresses these issues, and concludes that public organizations will have to change their organizational structures radically as well as their enterprise systems in order to implement business process management concepts successfully. The paper also discusses the benefits of public sector process management, and focuses in some detail on two of the reasons that public organizations have incentive to implement business process management methodologies.

Since February 2000, we have seen numerous announcements from large companies such as General Motors, Boeing, Ford and British Airways saying they are creating or participating in Business-to-Business (B2B) eMarketplaces. Clearly, these companies believe they are going to derive benefits in supply chains from these trading exchanges. In analyzing the situation, the potential benefits to large organizations are obvious. However, the benefits to suppliers, who are usually SMEs, are less obvious. This paper draws on the author's experience in working with Boeing to build an aerospace hub in Asia, and addresses the problems that face SMEs when they are asked to participate in exchanges. The paper includes an outline for a realistic business case that includes supplier considerations, and ends with a proposal for creating an exchange environment that makes it easier for SMEs to participate.

This paper provides a description and an analysis of the effectiveness of the Electronic Commerce Resource Center (ECRC) concept, as implemented in the USA. Following the general presentation, a specific discussion of the industry-education partnership at a Center in Fairfax, Virginia is provided. The mission of the ECRC network is to transfer process improving and enabling electronic commerce technologies to small and medium-sized businesses and government agencies. Each ECRC is a virtual organization, comprised of industry and university partners. In order to achieve its mission, the ECRC focuses on demonstrating emerging technologies, and then rapidly transferring the technologies to small and medium-size businesses. The ECRC mission also requires the provision of training on process improving methods, legacy data management, and enabling technologies. Finally the effectiveness of the Fairfax ECRC is analysed within the context of our internally established performance measurement system. The authors argue that the ECRC concept could be successfully transferred to other countries, given the intense worldwide interest in electronic commerce.

Learning is often perceived as a cost-reducing endogenous by-product of production processes. In many applications this by-product is modeled as a learning curve; that is, a simple function of time or of cumulative production experience. In an earlier paper we presented an alternative explanation where managers decide what resources to devote to knowledge acquisition. In this paper we expand those results to a situation using a more flexible production technology and emphasizing discounted cost. Our model explains resource and output behavior for a firm that is producing specialized units to contractual order. However, the results are quite general and have implications for investment in research, engineering, science and technology, software development, and worker training. We provide examples where the cost-minimizing producer will choose to invest in knowledge creation early in the production program and then have the rate of investment decline over time. Other interesting results are noted by examining the optimal time paths of the control and state variables in a comparative dynamic analysis.

A number of commercial software vendors sell supply chain software suites that cover essentially all needs of the enterprise. For example, a vendor’s product can handle everything from creating an order, to logistics planning for that order, to logistics execution of that order, and finally to financial settlement. Allowing a single software suite to enable all supply chain-related transactions has some significant benefits including reduced integration costs, improved data integrity, and increased process optimization; however, the reality is that many organizations explicitly choose not to perform all of their transactions in a single software suite. Instead, supply chain processes are almost always executed across a heterogeneous system landscape, often involving communications among systems that were not designed to communicate with each other. Akin to the system landscape decision is the decision of how to implement business processes. There are some business processes in which no competitive advantage is gained from “doing things your own way”; for example, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software has optimized the processing of payroll to the point where a customized payroll process probably will not give you much of an edge over the non-customized competition. However, there are other business processes where innovation can provide a competitive advantage; for example, in the 1980s Wal-Mart enhanced its logistics operations with crossdocking and gained an operational advantage over other retailers. Process innovation is widely acknowledged as a means of increasing business value (Davenport, 1992). In such cases, a single unmodified commercial software product might not support the customized process, and the question becomes how to best develop a solution supporting the customized process while keeping interfacing and interface maintenance costs under control. In recent years, a number of enterprise software vendors have put forward offerings in the genre we call “Model-to-Execution.” These offerings provide a viable means of designing and implementing custom solutions in a manner that is economical in terms of both implementation and maintenance costs. We begin by presenting our hypothesis and briefly introducing the concept of Model-toExecution. We then discuss the case study that is used to test the hypothesis and the solution that was designed and implemented via Model-to-Execution. Finally, we describe the benefits of Model-to-Execution for organizations and discuss some of our lessons learned from testing the hypothesis.

Government cost analysts must often construct models using production data that are limited by a contract between the producer and the government. The producer usually does not share cost data with the government unless the contract requires that data are reported. Also, the data that are reported are often not in the proper form for constructing mathematical models; that is, cost data are often provided by production unit or lot, while economic and accounting data are usually reported by time period. This paper provides a mathematical link between unit or lot data and time series data; that is, between the units domain and the time domain. The analysis is relevant for made-to-order production, the case where a relatively small number of specialized items are produced to contractual order, as in defense and other government contract situations.

Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) is typically presented from a software development perspective, viewing the enterprise as an extension of the distributed network management model. The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate that the business value of SOA derives from aligning business services with business processes that are enabled as composite applications. This aligned approach to service-oriented implementation is called Business Process Management to SOA (BPM to SOA). This chapter describes BPM to SOA in some detail, including an implementation perspective that is based on successful project delivery. The business benefits of BPM to SOA are presented, and the chapter asserts that the business case for SOA cannot be completed without aligning business services to end-to-end business processes.

In recent years there has been much interest in developing interactive algorithms for solving multiple objective optimization problems. In this paper we present an approach for estimating the gradient within a line-search algorithm. The approach uses a numerical approximation to the gradient obtained by fitting a first-order experimental design to the decision maker's value function. Test results indicate that the algorithm provides accurate utility predictions for numerically assessed gradient vectors, relative to analytical gradient vectors.

The evolution of Enterprise Services is changing the approach for enabling Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). Enabling systems are migrating to process- and service-oriented solutions, requiring new approaches for architecting composite applications. This paper uses examples from our work to present the state-of-the art in architecting end-to-end solutions for delivering PLM and SCM capabilities from an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to the customer. The paper also demonstrates how emerging methodologies, methods, and tools are used to support the implementation of composite applications, as well as the limitations of working in a mixed legacy/modern environment during the lengthy transition period to the new service-oriented computing paradigm. The hypothesis of this paper is that design and supply chain integration is achievable through composite application design, development, and deployment. This paper discusses the design, development, and deployment of a composite application to address the product improvement process for military vehicles, and it lays the foundation for testing the hypothesis. Based on these initial analyses we conclude that the composite approach to PLM is not only feasible, but may provide the only practical solution (given current technologies) to a very complex supply chain information sharing problem.Copyright © 2008 by ASME and U.S. Government

This paper explores a class of dynamic cost models that are designed for made-to-order production and are particularly applicable to the airframe industry. In these models we use optimal control theory to describe the time paths of resource use and production rate. The analytic solution for the most general specification of the model is unknown, however the imposition of a restriction on the relation between production rate and experience rate leads to a straightforward solution. The model implies that there exists an optimal trade-off between learning and production rate during the life of a program and that production rate should be changing throughout the life of the program in order to minimize cost. The model is compared with the learning curve, and the applicability of the model is explored by performing various parametric sensitivity analyses. The model's behavior is consistent with the dynamics of actual made-to-order production programs.

The US Army is using the ARIS Business Suite and the SAP Solution Manager to manage its implementation of the Single Army Logistics Enterprise — one of the largest SAP ERP system implementations to date. For the US Army, this approach enables the Army’s transformation from a supply-based and often stove-piped logistics enterprise into an integrated, streamlined, responsive distribution-based enterprise that delivers ‘the right support to the warfighter in the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantities.’

Zum Aufbau ihres Single Army Logistics Enterprise (SALE) arbeitet die US Army mit der ARIS Business Suite und dem SAP Solution Manager. Es ist bislang eine der umfassendsten SAP-ERP-Implementierungen. Mit ihrer Hilfe schafft die US Army den Wandel von einem nachschuborientierten und oft eingleisigen Logistikunternehmen in ein integriertes, reaktionsfahiges und verteilungsorientiertes Unternehmen, das „dem Soldaten die passenden Ressourcen am richtigen Ort, zur richtigen Zeit und in der richtigen Menge liefert.“

Das Logistiksystem der U.S. Army besteht aus einer komplexen Abfolge von Prozessen, Organisationen, Doktrinen, Verfahren und automatisierten Systemen. Historisch gesehen ist das System in zwei Verwaltungsebenen unterteilt: Die Wholesale-Ebene (Zwischenhandlerebene) umfasst normalerweise Army Materiel Command (AMC), Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) sowie die betriebliche Grundlage; die Retail-Ebene (Endhandlerebene) enthalt samtliche Kundenorganisationen bis zur Einsatzebene und darunter. Doktrinar hingegen lasst sich das System in eine strategische, eine betriebliche und eine taktische Ebene unterteilen. Seit einigen Jahren wird der Ansatz verfolgt, diese Bereich so einzurichten, dass weitestgehend kommerzielle Standardsoftware eingesetzt werden kann. In diesem Beitrag wird der architektonische Planungsansatz zur Konzeption einer Standardsoftwarelosung beschrieben, die die beiden logistischen Verwaltungsebenen der U.S. Army vereint.