Enterprise Systems within the Discipline Framework of Industry Information Integration Engineering
Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) also called Enterprise Systems
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Information_System, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_system).
EIS has become increasingly popular as it integrates and extends business processes across the boundaries of business functions and corporate walls, as well as across countries’ border lines. In recent years, a growing number of enterprises world-wide have adopted EIS, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), to run their businesses. Prior to the emergence of EIS, information systems such as MRPII, CAD, CAM, and CRM were widely used for partial functional integration within a business organization; however, with global operation, global supply chain, and fierce competition in place, there is a need for suitable EIS such as ERP, e-Business, and e-Commerce systems to integrate extended enterprises in a supply chain environment with the objective of achieving efficiency, competency, and competitiveness. As an example, global business operation has forced Dell and Microsoft to adopt ERP in order to take advantage of the global supply network. Today, not only large and medium sized companies, but also small companies, are quickly learning that a highly integrated EIS is a requirement for a strong global business operation.
Evidence shows that EIS is having an important long-term strategic impact on global business and world economy. Due to the importance of this subject, there is a growing demand for research on EIS to provide insights on issues, challenges, and solutions related to the design, implementation, and management of EIS. In June 2005, at a meeting of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Technical Committee for Information Systems (TC8) held at Guimarães, Portugal, Xu first proposed the discipline framework of Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) systematically as a scientific sub-discipline called Industry Information Integration Engineering (Roode 2005). The IFIP TC 8 committee members from many different countries intensively discussed the innovative and unique characteristics of EIS and Industry Information Integration Engineering as a scientific sub-discipline (Raffai 2007). In this meeting, it was decided that the IFIP TC8 First International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (CONFENIS 2006) would be held in April 2006 in Vienna, Austria. In August 2006, at the IFIP 2006 World Computer Congress held in Santiago, Chile, Xu’s proposal was voted and endorsed by the Congress, and the IFIP TC8 WG8.9 Enterprise Information Systems was formally established to promote world-wide academic interactions among both academics and practitioners in the area of enterprise information systems in order to advance the concepts, methods, and techniques related to enterprise information systems.
In October 2006, an Enterprise Information Systems Special Session was successfully held at the 2006 IEEE SMC International Conference. In 2007, the IEEE SMC Technical Committee on EIS was established to focus on the interface between systems engineering and industry information integration engineering, based on Xu’s proposal. This is the first EIS TC in IEEE. Since then, Confenis has been held in Beijing, China (2007); Győr, Hungary (2009); Natal, Brazil (2010); and Aalborg, Denmark (2011). A Special Session on EIS has also been held at every IEEE SMC International Conference.
To further respond to the needs of both academicians and practitioners for
communicating and publishing their research outcomes regarding EIS and Industry Information Integration Engineering, Taylor & Francis, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, decided in 2006 to launch an international science and engineering journal entitled Enterprise Information Systems, which is exclusively devoted to the topic of EIS and Industry Information Integration Engineering. The journal has been included in SCI since its inception. In 2009, it had an impact factor of 2.809 and ranked 12/116 among computer/information systems journals by Thompson Reuters.
EIS is largely influenced by systems science and engineering. John Warfield (former President of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions SMC, and an IEEE Life Fellow) points out that enterprise integration as the major global challenge of these times is, at root, a systems challenge (Warfield 2007). A massive amount of literature demonstrates that systems science and engineering have major implications for enterprise integration; although they offer solutions to many other problematic situations involving complexity, they are able to meet this challenge (Warfield 2007). Systems science and engineering have been used to serve specific enterprises in certain of their operations. For example, Scott M. Staley, Chief Engineer at Ford Motor Company, worked with a large cross-functional team to create an enterprise-wide information system (known as the C3P system), using the work program of complexity (WPOC) which stems from systems science (Staley & Warfield 2007). The C3P system refers to a CAD/CAE/CAM/PIMS system and has been applied to design, engineer, and manufacture automobiles and to provide product information across and beyond the entire enterprise, extending into the supplier and customer base.
IEEE SMC TC on Enterprise Information Systems provides an engineering and industry forum which expands the growing dialogue among researchers and practitioners world-wide, enabling them to share their research results and applications. It provides a venue in which engineers and researchers in EIS can find the latest, state-of-the-art information in this burgeoning area. Topics of interest include enterprise engineering, enterprise modeling, and especially the complex and cross-disciplinary systems research of enterprise integration that arises when integrating extended enterprises in a contemporary global supply chain environment. Techniques developed in mathematical science, computer science, manufacturing engineering, and systems engineering used in the design or operation of enterprise information systems are also considered.
This Special Issue presents two articles – one reporting the current status of EIS, and one considering EIS in systems research perspectives, which includes those advances that are occurring in an accelerating fashion within EIS.
Businesses all over the world are investing billions of dollars in acquiring and implementing EIS, particularly the ERP systems designed by SAP and Oracle (Li, Valerdi & Warfield 2008). Advances within EIS in this burgeoning area are occurring at an accelerated rate. However, the enterprise integration challenges are still numerous as more complex systems are continuously being created and as new technologies are created or integrated. More research is expected to address these challenges and to emphasize the importance of systems science and engineering in EIS in different ways. A continuous collaboration, as well as an exchange of ideas and experiences by researchers and practitioners, is crucial to further development of this area.
References
Li, L., Valerdi, R., & Warfield, J. (2008). Advances in enterprise information systems. Information Systems Frontiers, 10(5), 499-501.
Raffai, M. (2007). New Working Group in IFIP TC8 Information Systems Committee:
WG 8.9 Working Group on Enterprise Information Systems. SEFBIS Journal, 2, 4-8.
Roode, D. (2005) IFIP General Assembly September 2005 Gaborone, Botswana Report from Technical Committee 8 (Information Systems). 27 August 2005.
Staley, S, & Warfield, J. (2007). Enterprise integration of product development data: systems science in action. Enterprise Information Systems, 1(3), 269–285.
Warfield, J. (2007). Systems science serves enterprise integration: a tutorial. Enterprise Information Systems, 1(2), 235–254.
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Li Xu Co-Chair, Technical Committee on Enterprise Information Systems Email: |