Antonia Albani - Böcker

The expectation for the future of the 21st century enterprise is complexity and agility. In this digital age, business processes are scattered not only throu- out the labyrinth of their own enterprises, but also across di?erent enterprises, and even beyond the national boundaries. An evidence of this is the gr- ing phenomenon of business process outsourcing. Increasing competition, higher customer demands, and emerging technologies require swift adaptation to the changes. To understand, design, and engineer a modern enterprise (or an enterprise network) and its interwoven business processes, an engineering and systematic approach based on sound and rigorous theories and methodologies is necessary. Along with that, a paradigmshift seems to be needed for addressing these issues adequately. An appealing candidate is to look at an enterprise and its business processes as a social system. In its social setting, an enterprise and its bu- ness processes represent actors with certain authorities and assigned roles, who assume certain responsibilities in order to provide a service to its environment. The need for this paradigm shift along with the complexity and agility of modern enterprises, gives inspiration for the emerging discipline of Enterprise Engineering. For the study of this socio-technical phenomenon, the prominent tools ofModeling andSimulation play a signi?cant role.Both (conceptual) m- eling and simulationare widely used for understanding,analyzing,andengine- ing an enterprise (its organization and business processes).

In the era of continuous changes in internal organizationalsettings and external business environments – such as new regulations and business opportunities – modern enterprises are subject to extensive research and study. For the understanding, design, and engineering of modern enterprises and theircomplexbusiness processes,thedisciplineofenterpriseengineeringrequires sound engineering principles and systematic approaches based on rigorous th- ries. Along with that, a paradigm shift seems to be needed for addressing these issues adequately. The main paradigm shift is the consideration of an enterprise and its business processes as a social system. In its social setting, an enterprise and its business processes represent actors with certain authorities and assigned roles, who assume certain responsibilities in order to provide a service to its environment. Second to that, a paradigm shift is to look at an enterprise as an artifact purposefully designed for a certain mission and goal. The need for this paradigm shift, along with the complexity and agility of modern enterprises, gives inspiration for the emerging discipline of enterprise engineering that requires development of new theories and methodologies. To this end, the prominent methods and tools of modeling and simulation play a signi?cant role. Both (conceptual) modeling and simulation are widely used for understanding, analyzing, and engineering an enterprise (its organization and business processes).

Enterprise engineering is an emerging discipline that studies enterprises from an engineering perspective. This means that enterprises are considered to be purposefully designed and implemented systems, which consequently can be - designed and re-implemented if there is a need for change. Behavioral and m- agerial knowledge is perfectly adequate to identify the need for a change, but it is insu?cient to bring it about. Next, enterprise engineering is rooted in both the organizational sciences and the information system sciences. The rigorous integrationof these traditionallydisjoint scienti?c areashas become possible f- lowing the recognition that communication is a form of action. Since then it has been quite common to speak of communicative acts, like requesting and prom- ing. Consequently, communication (and information) is given an organizational interpretation: requests and promises are commitments, and communication is entering into and complying with commitments. This important insight clari?es the fact that enterprises belong to the category of social systems, i. e. , their - tive elements (actors) are social individuals (human beings). Founding itself on this newscienti?c paradigm,enterpriseengineeringaddressesthe challengesthat enterprisesarecurrentlyfacedwith,boththeinternalandtheexternalones.The unifying role of human beings makes it possible to address problems in a holistic way, to achieve unity and integration in bringing about organizational change. This has not been shown before. Thedevelopmentofsuchaninnovativeapproach,asenterpriseengineeringis, requiresthe activeinvolvementof a varietyof researchinstitutes and a tight c- laboration between them. This is achieved by a continuously expanding network ofuniversitiesandcompanies,calledtheCIAO!Network(www. ciaonetwork. org).

This book constitutes the proceedings of the first Enterprise Engineering Working Conference (EEWC), held in Antwerp, Belgium, May 16-17, 2011. EEWC aims at addressing the challenges that modern and complex enterprises are facing in a rapidly changing world. The participants of the working conference share the belief that dealing with these challenges requires rigorous and scientific solutions, focusing on the design and engineering of enterprises. The goal of EEWC is to stimulate interaction between the different stakeholders, scientists as well as practitioners, interested in making Enterprise Engineering a reality.The 8 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. EEWC 2011 had 24 submissions of which 8 were accepted for publication. The topics of the papers encouraged active participation in interesting discussions and the exchange of ideas, and stimulated future cooperation among the participants. This made EEWC a real ‘working conference’ contributing to the further development of Enterprise Engineering as a mature discipline. The topics covered include designing organizations with DEMO, combining DEMO with other methods, and studies in enterprise architecture.