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The modern business environment is characterised by dynamism and ambiguity. The causes include global economic change, rapid change requirements, shortened development life cycles and the increasing complexity of information technology and information systems (IT/IS). However, enterprises have been seen as socio-technical systems. The dynamic complex business environment cannot be understood without intensive modelling and simulation. Nevertheless, there is no single description of reality, which has been seen as relative to its context and point of view. Human perception is considered an important determinant for the subjectivist view of reality. Many scholars working in the socio-technical systems and enterprise modelling domains have conceived the holistic sociotechnical systems analysis and design possible using a limited number of procedural and modelling approaches. For instance, the ETHICS and Human-centred design approaches of socio-technical analysis and design, goal-oriented and process-oriented modelling of enterprise modelling perspectives, and the Zachman and DoDAF enterprise architecture frameworks all have limitations that can be improved upon, which have been significantly explained in this thesis.

Organisations comprise human and technical systems that typically perform a variety of business, engineering and production roles. Human systems comprise individuals, people groups and teams that work systematically to conceive, implement, develop and manage the purposes of any enterprise in response to customer requirements. Recently attention has been paid to modelling aspects of people working within production systems, with a view to improving: production performance, effective resource allocation and optimum resource management. In the research reported, graphical and computer executable models of people have been conceived and used in support of human systems engineering. The approach taken has been to systematically decompose and represent processes so that elemental production and management activities can be modelled as explicit descriptions of roles that human systems can occupy as role holders. First of all, a preliminary modelling method (MM1) was proposed for modelling human systems in support of engineering enterprise; then MM1 was implemented and tested in a case study company 1. Based on findings of this exploratory research study an improved modelling method (MM2) was conceived and instrumented. Here characterising customer related product dynamic impacts extended MM1 modelling concepts and methods and related work system changes. MM2 was then tested in case study company 2 to observe dynamic behaviours of selected system models derived from actual company knowledge and data. Case study 2 findings enabled MM2 to be further improved leading to MM3. MM3 improvements stem from the incorporation of so-called DPU (Dynamic Producer Unit) concepts, related to the modelling of human and technical resource system components . Case study 4 models a human system for targeted users i.e. production managers etc to facilitate analysis of human configuration and also cost modelling. Modelling approaches MM2, MM3 and also Case Study 4 add to knowledge about ways of facilitating quantitative analysis and comparison between different human system configurations. These new modelling methods allow resource system behaviours to be matched to specific, explicitly defined, process-oriented requirements drawn from manufacturing workplaces currently operating in general engineering, commercial furniture and white goods industry sectors.

Changing conditions within an organisation's environment necessitate enactment of the strategy realisation process to produce relevant coping strategic intents to successfully reconfigure current, or potential, process networks to better exploit potential opportunities or minimise impacts of a potential threats. Literature regarding strategy realisation has not produced a coherent approach to describe and decompose the subprocesses of the strategy realisation, i.e., several different approaches have been taken to enact some components however there is no formal decomposition of such process. A revision of the strategy realisation literature was conducted and a formal decomposition model for the strategy realisation process was conceived. Various modelling tools, methods and techniques were surveyed to enable the underpinning of the proposed strategy realisation conceptualisation. Utilising a combination of static, causal and simulation modelling methods and tools, a research methodology was proposed to underpin aspects of the enterprise which would facilitate the decision making process of the strategy realisation process. Two case studies were identified in which the proposed methodology could be implemented. In the first case study, two differing strategic intents were analysed within the same organisation under opposing economic conditions. The second case study observed the implementation of a different system configuration to achieve a strategic intent. The strategy realisation process was studied using the described conceptualisation and the enterprise was modelled. Key variables, set by senior management were observed and quantitative analysis was undertaken and reported. It was concluded that the use of modelling methods providing quantitative and qualitative analysis facilitated the decision process within an organisation. A new conceptualisation of the strategy realisation process and the integration of modelling methods, tools and techniques were devised.

Much of industry is seeking scope economies, but this requires more complex and flexible product realisation. Modelling technologies have potential to support the life cycle engineering of both Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) manufacturing systems. However when companies operate in dynamic environments it is not sufficient to model manufacturing systems in isolation. Rather a holistic modelling methodology is needed which can create structural and behavioural models of dependencies between the manufacturing systems, and the business and engineering environments in which they operate; so that a suitable balance between economies of scope and scale can be achieved. This thesis describes the conception and development of a step wised Extended Modelling Methodology (EMM) which facilitates reasoning, and related decision making, about EoSS manufacturing systems. The EMM was conceived from exploratory research in two SMEs, following which it was applied and case tested in a large manufacturing company. Little academic attention to date has been paid to theorising about the link between ‘Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) phenomenon' and ‘manufacturing systems design'. Hence many questions about EoSS manufacturing remain unanswered, such as: (1) academic communities need to know what EoSS actually means and how state-of-the-art modelling can support qualitative and quantitative analysis of EoSS system phenomenon; and (2) industry needs to know how they can benefit from EoSS, what attended costs they might incur, and what best balance between scope and scale economies can be achieved. With these general requirements in mind the thesis reports on the conception and industrial application of the EMM. This has: (A) developed new ideas about EoSS, which can be used to characterise EoSS phenomenon; (B) introduced a new way of visualising architectural aspects of EoSS at multiple-levels of abstraction; and (C) with reference to case studies has illustrated the use of multi-level modelling to enable predictions to be made about EoSS benefits and costs.

Business environments, in which any modern Manufacturing Enterprise (ME) operates, have grown significantly in complexity and are changing faster than ever before. It follows that designing a flexible manufacturing system to achieve a set of strategic objectives involves making a series of complex decisions over time. Therefore manufacturing industry needs improved knowledge about likely impacts of making different types of change in MEs and improved modelling approaches that are capable of providing a systematic way of modelling change impacts in complex business processes; prior to risky and costly change implementation projects. An ability to simulate the execution of process instances is also needed to control, animate and monitor simulated flows of multiple products through business processes; and thereby to assess impacts of dynamic distributions and assignments of multiple resource types during any given time period. Further more this kind of modelling capability needs to be integrated into a single modelling framework so as to improve its flexibility and change coordination. Such a modelling capability and framework should help MEs to achieve successfully business process re-engineering, continuous performance development and enterprise re-design. This thesis reports on the development of new modelling constructs and their innovative application when used together with multiple existing modelling approaches. This enables human and technical resource systems to be described, specified and modelled coherently and explicitly. In turn this has been shown to improve the design of flexible, configurable and re-usable manufacturing resource systems, capable of supporting decision making in agile manufacturing systems. A newly conceived and developed Role-Based Modelling Methodology (R-BMM) was proposed during this research study. Also the R-BMM was implemented and tested by using it together with three existing modelling approaches namely (1) extended Enterprise Modelling, (2) dynamic Causal Loop Diagramming and (3) Discrete Event Simulation Modelling (via software PlantSimulation ®). Thereby these three distinct modelling techniques were deployed in a new and coherent way. The new R-BMM approach to modelling manufacturing systems was designed to facilitate: (1) Graphical Representation (2) Explicit Specification and (3) Implementation Description of Resource systems. Essentially the approach enables a match between suitable human and technical resource systems and well defined models of processes and workflows. Enterprise Modelling is used to explicitly define functional and flexibility competencies that need to be possessed by suitable role holders. Causal Loop Diagramming is used to reason about dependencies between different role attributes. The approach was targeted at the design and application of simulation models that enable relative performance comparisons (such as work throughput, lead-time and process costs) to be made and to show how performance is affected by different role decompositions and resourcing policies. The different modelling techniques are deployed via a stepwise application of the R-BMM approach. Two main case studies were carried out to facilitate methodology testing and methodology development. The chosen case company possessed manufacturing characteristics required to facilitate testing and development; in terms of significant complexity and change with respect to its products and their needed processing structures and resource systems. The first case study was mainly designed to illustrate an application, and benefits arising from application, of the new modelling approach. This provided both qualitative and quantitative results analysis and evaluation. Then with a view to reflecting on modelling methodology testing and to address a wider scope manufacturing problem, the second case study was designed and applied at a different level of abstraction, to further test and verify the suitability and re-usability of the methodology. Through conceiving the new R-BMM approach, to create, analyse and assess the utility of sets of models, this research has proposed and tested enhancements to current means of realising reconfigurable and flexible production systems.