=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1164/PaperVision13
|storemode=property
|title=Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of Information Systems
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1164/PaperVision13.pdf
|volume=Vol-1164
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/caise/Kirikova14
}}
==Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of Information Systems==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1164/PaperVision13.pdf
Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of
Information Systems
Marite Kirikova
Riga Technical University, Latvia
marite.kirikova@cs.rtu.lv
Abstract. Contemporary information systems have to satisfy needs of agile and
viable enterprises. They shall include mechanisms of business intelligence,
business process management, information technology infrastructure
management, and alignment between business and computer systems. The
mechanisms for business process handling and computer systems handling are
similar, and the mechanisms for their continuous integrated improvement also
are similar, therefore the architecture of information systems components that
support these processes can have a measure of similarity if considered at a
particular level of abstraction. The paper, focusing on aforementioned
similarities, uses St. Alter's work systems paradigm for constructing fractal
architecture of information systems that can be used for supporting agile and
viable organizations.
Keywords: work system, fractal architecture, information systems.
1 Introduction
Cloud solutions and use of business intelligence tools have transformed the landscape
of information systems from relatively rigid internal architectures to more flexible and
open structures of information handling [1], [2]. This refers to more flexible
distribution of physical devices as well as possibility to acquire real time data that can
be used for introducing changes in business and information technology solutions.
The question arises how these abilities of information technology solutions can be
represented in information systems architectures so that complexity that increases
with the introduction of higher variability and flexibility could be embraced and
managed.
While business, software, and hardware systems are very different, the
mechanisms used in their analysis and management do not differ so much. For
instance, similarities can be found in the actor based approaches in business analysis
and actor based approaches in parallel programming. Moreover, according to our
experience [3], [4] - data acquisition and analysis methods for big data analysis in
social networks can be compared with similar methods in computer networks. These
similarities suggest to seek for common architecture patterns that could be used in
business and information technology domains, since the information systems
processes cross both domains.
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In this paper we propose to use work systems paradigm introduced by St. Alter [5],
as a basis for reflecting architecture of information systems. Taking into consideration
that information systems concerns both business and information technology
subsystems of an enterprise, we use inclusion relationship between different work
systems of the enterprise
The paper is structured as follows. We briefly discuss related work in Section 2. In
Section 3 we propose the work systems paradigm based model of fractal information
systems architecture. In section 4 we discuss the benefits of viewing information
systems architecture as a fractal architecture composed of multiple work systems.
Brief conclusions and directions of further research are presented in Section 5.
2 Related Work
The approach proposed in this paper is based on two main sources of related work,
namely, on the work systems theory [5], and contemporary applications of viable
systems model [6], [7], [8].
According to Steven Alter [5] “an information system is a work system whose
processes and activities are devoted to processing information, that is, capturing,
transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating, and displaying information. A work
system is a system in which human participants and/or machines perform work
(processes and activities) using information, technology and other resources to
produce specific products and/or services for specific internal or external customers”.
The customers can be external customers of the enterprise as well as internal
customers (one sub-work system has produced information valuable for another sub-
work system). The work system is embedded in its environment, and depends on
organizational strategy and infrastructure (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Work system behind the process (the triangle in the figure is adopted from [5])
Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of Information Systems 99
Thus, we can state that behind each organizational process there is a work system.
From the modeling perspective, there is a real or virtual work system behind of each
business process at any level of abstraction or decomposition. On another hand, for
each business process there can be find an information processing sub-process (or
activities that themselves perform a transformation of inputs into outputs and
therefore can be regarded as processes, which produce information). Thus, using
Alter's work system paradigm it is possible to identify information systems
architecture that consists of work systems that are structured according to the chosen
model of representation of business processes. This issue will be discussed in more
detail in the next section.
Contemporary applications of viable systems model show that an enterprise has to
handle its internal work systems as well as it has to have good environment scanning
capabilities at the operational and strategic levels [6], [7], [8]. For the enterprise to be
viable, its internal units have to have a measure of autonomy and it should be
organized as fractals [9] (in Fig. 2 each "ONE", which corresponds to the processes
that bring value to the customer, consists of a smaller scale viable systems model).
Such structure enables flexibility that is essential to ensure agility of enterprises.
Thus, according to the viable systems model, for the value adding and strategic
processes of the enterprise (processes that are directly related to the external
environment) we can distinguish at least three sub-processes: production
(transforming given inputs into given outputs), environment scanning (operational
and/or strategic), and internal control or management (see Fig. 2). In this paper we
extrapolate that such three sub-processes are applicable to any process in an
enterprise, because also enabling processes and other management processes have to
scan their environment inside the enterprise.
Fig. 2. Viable systems model: a process perspective
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Application of viable systems model for contemporary enterprises is a
multidisciplinary research topic, which is out of the scope of this paper. Hereby we
just borrow the idea of necessity to be aware of external environment, to produce the
value, and to be able to manage itself (quality management, change management, etc)
for each autonomous unit (we regard the process as an autonomous unit here).
Another issue is that while the viable systems model has a fractal architecture, the
fractal architecture of information systems proposed in this paper is viewed from the
point of view of an information system as a subsystem of an organization, not just
from the point of view of operational fractals of the viable systems model.
3 Similarities in Information Systems Support for Organizational
Processes.
As described in previous section, the viable systems model indirectly prescribes that
each value producing unit has to be aware of its environment, and handle the value
production and self-management sub-processes. Each of this sub-process certainly
needs information that, in turn, is supported by the information systems sub-processes
(see View A in Fig. 3). These information systems sub-processes have to be supported
by particular human or artificial information handling units that represent a specific
part of information systems architecture. Thus there will be and information systems
process behind of each business process as it sub-process (View B in Fig. 3). This
information systems process includes information system sub-processes for
environment scanning, value production, and self-management.
Fig. 3. Information systems process as a sub-process of business process (View A - sub-process
level dependency, View B - process level dependency)
Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of Information Systems 101
The information systems processes are part of work systems that are handling
them. Thus behind each information systems process, that supports business process,
there is a work system capable of information handling for the particular process (see
Fig. 4). The work system in Fig. 4 is a part of work system reflected in Fig 1.
Fig. 4. Information systems architecture work system behind the business process (via
corresponding information systems process)
From the process point of view all work systems behind information system
processes are self-similar, they have to have a measure autonomy, and they are a part
of a whole work system that supports all information processes in a an enterprise.
Thus work systems that support business processes form a fractal architecture [7], [9]
that can expose a high level of flexibility needed for agile and viable companies.
On another hand, information systems management also is a business process, thus
the scanning of information systems environment, information production, and
management of information system are sub-processes to be supported (recursively) by
the information system. This applies to information systems processes at a high level
of abstraction as well to physical processes, such as cloud management or software
development process management, or hardware cluster management [1], [2]. In all
cases the same type of work system processes are present, just at different level of
scale and using information systems architecture elements of different substance (see
Fig. 2, Fig. 3, and Fig. 4).
The proposed fractal elements of the information systems architecture can be
recognized at two dimensions: from the value production dimension and the work
systems substance dimension. At the value production dimension we consider all
business process including their variants and value production oriented
decompositions. Value production oriented decomposition is different from business
process sub-process types reflected in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Value production
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decomposition means product oriented decompositions, e.g., the process "educate
students" can be decomposed into sub-processes "educate students in chemistry" and
"educate students in physics" (alternatively these can be viewed as process variants,
too), the process "manufacture cars" can be decomposed into sub-processes
"manufacture sport cars" and "manufacture city cars", or "manufacture engine" and
"manufacture navigation system". We use the value production dimension at the
business level. At information systems level we use work systems substance
dimension, where the work system can be considered as a virtual actor composed
from human participants and technologies: software, and hardware elements (Fig. 5)
(including different its variants and decompositions still reflecting human actors as
part of the work system); software (application software and/or systems software)
together with hardware systems; as well as pure hardware systems with embedded
information handling functions.
Fig. 5. An element of fractal information systems architecture
The work systems element of information systems architecture, reflected in Fig. 5
suits for both: business value production dimension and work systems substance
dimension, from the point of view of information handling.
4 Discussion
There are the following benefits from viewing information systems architecture as a
fractal architecture composed of multiple work systems:
This helps to ensure that all business processes are supported by information
system services (sub-processes for environment scanning, value production, and
Work Systems based Fractal Architecture of Information Systems 103
self-management). These services or sub-processes are essential for agile and
viable companies as they have to cope with unpredictable changes in their
environments.
Consideration of information systems architecture as a fractal system of work
systems gives an opportunity to at least recognize (and if possible - manage) all
actual virtual information system work systems supporting the business system
regardless of ownership of software and hardware and regardless of functional
boundaries of an enterprise.
Since the work system can be considered as a virtual system, the changes in the
architecture can be introduced on a regular basis by combining the work systems or
introducing their new versions at the needed level of abstraction or granularity,
based on self-similarity principles of fractal systems [7].
While the particular concept of work system is introduced on the basis of viable
systems model (Fig. 2) by considering its operational and strategic processes that
have to directly analyze the external environment of an enterprise, still the concept
is applicable also for business processes that do not belong to two abovementioned
categories. Such approach enables to look beyond not only functional boundaries
of an enterprise, but also to consider customers of the enterprise as partners and
switch between physical and virtual boundaries of enterprises in modeling of
information systems.
Currently the proposed approach of considering information systems architecture
as a fractal system of work systems is applied to two library processes in an
university. Library processes do not belong to operational or strategic processes
directly. Nevertheless they may have a direct relationship with the external
environment. We consider two processes - book ordering and acquisition of electronic
resources. The information systems work systems for both processes cross several
functional units of the university and for both processes environment scanning, value
production, and self-management sub-processes are relevant. Similar information
technology support is used for external environment scanning and internal
environment scanning (e.g. acquisition of usage statistics and acquisition of
popularity statistics). The results obtained so far show that a specific organizational
processes and work systems based information systems architecture management
system is needed to fully benefit from the application of work systems based fractal
information systems architecture.
5 Conclusions
The paper proposes to use the concept of a work system for designating virtual and
physical components of fractal information systems architecture. The proposal roots
in related work on work systems by St. Alter [5] and contemporary applications of
viable systems model [6], [7], [8]. However, here the notion of fractality does not
exactly consider (but can incorporate) recursive fractality prescribed by viable system
model. In the proposed approach, the fractality is considered from the point of view of
the value production dimension and the work systems substance dimension. The value
production dimension concerns value for external customers as well as value for
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internal customers. The approach allows to consider customers as partners and to
switch between physical and virtual boundaries of enterprises in modeling of
information systems. The work systems dimension permits to view the basic
information system sub-processes at the level of virtual actors composed of human
actors, software, and hardware; at the level of software and hardware; and at the level
of hardware only.
The work system is suggested to be considered as an architectural component that
for each given business process supports environment scanning, value production, and
self-management.
The paper is limited to the introduction of the concept at a high level of abstraction.
Two experiments are currently in progress to clarify the details and prepare the
ground for defining requirements for work systems based fractal information systems
architecture management system. A number of case studies in varieties of contexts
will be needed to provide detailed guidelines for application of the proposed concept.
Acknowledgment
This work is partly supported by the research grant of Latvian Council of Science,
Project No. Z12.0342.
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