Integration Technologies
Refer to the end for the discussion Post Topic:
If one cannot measure, then one cannot control so how to measure the performance of integrated systems, including both its deployment and actual usage is critical. There is no simple answer to this question because the measure of performance is multi-tiered and context dependent.
So far there is still no systematic deployment performance measurement method for system integration. What people in the field did was the so-called best practices. Different variables were used in different stage of deployment to measure the performance. Possible systematic methodology development could be derived from capability maturity model developed by the software engineering institute at Carnegie Mellon. One good place to start exploration for best practices used by practitioners is integration consortium, where members sharing their experience and best practices in system integration (most material needs registration to access but you can some openly accessible ones.)
In terms of actual usage performance measure, there are quite a few solutions dedicated or related to integrated systems. Actually if we consider the importance of IT in strategic alignment and the efficiency an ERP could deliver, then we will realize that integrated system is an indispensable component of any organizational performance measurement.
However, as we all know, there is a challenge in linking the information system performance to enterprise performance. A well-maintained Internet access system with 100% uptime is a perfect performance indicator but not necessarily lead to good enterprise performance (if the traffic were mainly directed to YouTube or eBay).
To link these two, we can translate the enterprise goal (especially financial goal) into actionable objectives for IT performance. Use balanced score card [1] on strategic IT management is one such example [2] .
Recently, the popularity of IT service management (ITIL) provides another way to measure the performance of integrated systems.
The idea behind the IT service management is essentially adding an additional layer, the service layer, between integrated IT system and the operational of enterprise. Like encapsulation in OO programming, this IT service management layer provides a standardized service interface delivered by IT for organization usage. So an organization could expect exactly what kind of service IT should deliver and plan the usage accordingly.
Below the service layer, we could observe the governing of overall IT systems and the monitoring of its performance. Thus it resolved the linkage challenge.
IT service management belongs to the category of process management, a trend originated from business process reengineering back in early 90s. The aforementioned capability maturity model is part of the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration), which is also one solution for process management [3].
Finally, you want to review a proposed framework for supply chain management [4].
Reference
1. Kaplan, R.S. and D.P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Measures That Drive Performance. Harvard Business Review, 1992. 70(1): p. 71-79.
2. Martinsons, M., R. Davison, and D. Tse, The balanced scorecard: a foundation for the strategic management of information systems. Decision Support Systems, 1999. 25(1): p. 71-88.
3. Koch, C., Software Quality: Bursting the CMM Hype. CIO Magazine, 2004.
4. Gunasekaran, A., Patel, C., and McGaughey, E., A Framework for Supply Chain Performance Measurement. International Journal of Production Economics, 2004. 87(3): p.333-347
Topic:
Investigate COBIT, ITIL, CMMI, or other standards and explain how they measure the performance of integrated enterprise systems, you may use the framework proposed for SCM in [4] as reference. If possible, refer a case study as example. Share your findings and comments.
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