Economic Models - Convex Optimization

Enterprise Modeling and Integration 127
• OPAL: This is also an AIT project that has proved that EI can be achieved
in design and manufacturing environments using existing ICT solutions
(Bueno, 1998).
• NIIIP (National industrial information infrastructure protocols) (Bolton
et al., 1997).
However, EI suffers from inherent complexity of the field, lack of established
standards, which sometimes happen after the fact, and the rapid and
unstable growth of the basic technology with a lack of commonly supported
global strategy. The EI modeling research community is growing at
a very rapid pace (Fox and Gruninger, 2003). The EIM research so far has
been mostly performed in large research organizations. A few pilot studies
have also been done in large organizations. Hunt (1991) suggests that EIM
is most beneficial to large industrial and government organizations. The
emphasis of current EIM research on large organizations is risky, and may
even have hampered the growth of the field. Enterprise wide modeling is
difficult in large organizations for two reasons: there is seldom any consensus
on exactly how the organization functions and the modeling task may
be so big that by the time any realistic model is built, the underlying domain
may have changed. Whatever these terms mean, we have to seek solutions
to solve industry problems, and this applies to EM and integration.
5. A Framework Setting for EI Modeling
Enterprise integration is a multifaceted task employed for addressing challenges
stemming from various aspects of the globalized economy. The contemporary
business world, economically, politically, and technologically is
a fast-changing world and most if not all enterprises, from small to large,
are continually challenged to evolve as rapidly as the world around them
evolves. Enterprise integration allows an enterprise to function coherently
as a whole and to shift its primary value chain activities in tandem with
its secondary value chain activities according to the challenges or requirements
posed by the enterprise environment or goals set by the enterprise
itself, and most frequently a combination of both (Giachetti, 2004). In this
context, the value chain’s primary and secondary activities are used simply
as a well-known functional-economic view of the enterprise in order to
communicate coherently, as opposed to a semantically accurate or complete
view of the enterprise (Porter, 1985).