Keywords: Conceptual Modeling

Keywords: Enterprise architecture, GEA method, Enterprise transformations
Astract: General Enterprise Architecting (GEA) is an enterprise architecture method which has emerged out of a need in practice, and has been developed and matured over the past 15 years. The GEA method differs from other enterprise architecture approaches in that it has a strong focus on enterprise coherence and the explicit governance thereof. This focus followed from the observed need to move beyond the Business-IT alignment and ‘Business-to-IT’ stack thinking that is embodied in most of the existing enterprise architecture approaches. The main objective of this paper is to report, and reflect on, the development of the GEA method (so-far), which involved a co-evolution between theory and practice. In doing so, we also present core elements of (the current version of) GEA, and illustrate these in terms of a real-world (social housing) case. We will, furthermore, also discuss some of the lessons learned in applying GEA across different organizations.

Keywords: DEMO, Enterprise ontology, Low code, MBE, Mendix
Astract: Due to factors such as hyper-competition, increasing expectations from customers, regulatory changes, and technological advancements, the conditions in which enterprises need to thrive become increasingly turbulent. As a result, enterprise agility, or flexibility, becomes an increasingly important determinant for enterprise success. Since Information System (IS) development often is a limiting factor in achieving enterprise flexibility, enterprise flexibility and (automated) IS flexibility cannot be viewed separately and choices that regard flexibility should not be left to developers. By taking a Model-based Engineering (MBE) approach, starting from ontological models of the enterprise and explicit organization design decisions, we bridge the gap from organizational flexibility to (automated) IS flexibility, in such a way that IT is no longer the limiting factor for enterprise flexibility. Low-code technology is a growing market trend that builds on MBE concepts. In this paper, we report on an mapping for (the automation of) the creation of a Mendix low-code application from the ontological model of an enterprise, while also accommodating the required organizational implementation flexibility. Even though the algorithm has been tested successfully on multiple cases, supporting all possible organizational flexibility seems to be an NP -hard problem, and more research is required to check the feasibility and usability of this approach.

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Astract: This paper is concerned with the question of how novel digital technologies can be used to enable IT governance to better deal with the need for more agility, flexibility, adaptivity, and connectivity, as brought about by our modern day society. We propose to digitally transform IT governance, in particular making it smart(er) by following a data-driven approach. In line with this, we present a vision for digitally transformed IT governance in the form of the DT4GITM (Digital Twin for Governed IT Management) framework, which exploits the Digital Twin concept as it is already used in other fields to monitor, analyze, simulate, and predict the performance of real-world assets. The purpose of the DT4GITM framework is to serve as a reference architecture for a technological infrastructure based on the Digital Twin concept that connects three interrelated systems - the IT governance processes, the governed IT management processes, and the managed organizational IT assets.

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Astract: The heterogeneity in enterprise design stakeholders and models gen- erally demands for consistent and efficient transformations of enterprise design knowledge between different conceptual modelling languages. A systematic pro- cess and precise model transformation specifications are a prerequisite for realizing such transformations. The Design and Engineering Methodology for Organiza- tions (DEMO) approach represents the organization design of an enterprise in four linguistically based, semantically sound aspect models. The Business Pro- cess Model and Notation (BPMN) on the other hand enables more flexibility in creating models and benefits from wide adoption in industry, the execution of pro- cesses e.g., by simulations, and the availability of proper tooling. A transformation of DEMO models into BPMN models is thus desirable to avail of both, the seman- tic sound foundation of DEMO and the wide adoption and execution possibilities of BPMN. Previous research already developed some principles and practices for transforming DEMO models into BPMN models, based on DEMOSL 3.7. This study focuses on the latest DEMO language specification, DEMOSL 4.5, since we believe that more clarity is required to specify consistent, well-motivated trans- formation specifications. We present a list of main requirements for developing transformation specifications to transform concepts represented in a Coordination Structure Diagram and Process Structure Diagram of DEMO into corresponding concepts in a BPMN collaboration diagram. The article makes three contribu- tions: (1) Generic requirements for developing DEMO-to-BPMN transformation specifications; (2) Nine transformation scenarios that are validated by multiple demonstration cases; and (3) A comprehensive college case that demonstrates all transformation scenarios.