Enterprise Modelling in Support of Organisation Design and Change

Abstract

Enterprises (business organisations) are increasingly operating under uncertain conditions arising from: governments that introduce new regulations; a market place which is shaped by ongoing change in customer requirements; change in capital markets that orient overall market directions; an advancing base of technology; and increasing competition which can arise from a growing number of sources (Monfared, 2000). Consequently, organisations are expected to change rapidly in response to emerging requirements. Classical theories and more recently ‘method-based’ organisation (re)design and change approaches have been proposed and tried with varying degrees of successes. This chapter contribution discusses the role of enterprise and simulation modelling in support of organisation (re)design and change. The capabilities and constraints of some widely acknowledged public domain enterprise modelling frameworks and methods are reviewed. A modelling approach which integrates the use of enterprise modelling (EM), causal loop modelling (CLM), and simulation modelling (SM) is described. The approach enables the generation of coherent and semantically rich models of organisations. The integrated modelling approach has been applied and tested in a number of manufacturing enterprises (MEs) and one case study application is described.