Intentional Alignment and Interoperability in Inter-Organization Information Systems - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 102

systems, pair wise. The aim is to develop the goal hierarchy of the System To Be
from the different system perspectives. The collection of goal hierarchies represents
the alignment of the system To Be with the old systems. Since, the old systems
are assumed to be aligned then the new system is aligned if the collection of goal
hierarchies is aligned.
Now, we need to consider interoperability. Notice that each new goal hierarchy
To Be represents only one perspective. However, the system To Be is built when
these hierarchies provide and obtain services from one another. This means that
we have to identify such points in the goal hierarchies where the goal/sub goal of
one hierarchy needs to cooperate with those of the other. Thus, interoperability is
intentional in nature.
Once intentional alignment/interoperability is achieved then the process model
of the new system is to be developed. This process model must satisfy the goal
hierarchy. When this happens then the goals and processes of the system To Be
are well aligned. From the perspective of interoperability of processes, the process
model To Be is a collaboration between process models of the different collaborating
process models.
To sum up our approach, we start with a number of As Is goal hierarchies. We
develop the goal hierarchy of the system To Be and the As Is goal hierarchies are
extended to To Be goal hierarchies. These latter should align with the To Be goal
hierarchies. The To Be goal hierarchies are examined for interoperability and pos-
sible collaborations are identified. Once intentional alignment and interoperability
are done then we move to the process model level. We again have a number of As
Is process models which must align to the process model of the system To Be. For
process model interoperability, the points of interaction between the As Is process
models are identified to meet interoperability goals at the intentional level.
The layout of the chapter is as follows. In the next section, we argue that in the
context of inter-organizational systems, the issues of alignment and interoperabil-
ity are related to one another. We represent this relationship in a two-dimensional
framework of alignment and interoperability. In Sect. 3 we consider intentional
alignment and interoperability of the supply chain system. In Sect. 4 we present
alignment and interoperability of supply chain at the process level.
2 The Two-Dimensional Framework
The basic assumption underlying our two-dimensional framework is that alignment
and interoperability can be considered at two levels, the former driving the lat-
ter. This is shown in Fig. 1 by the arrow between the two levels, one elaborating
intentions and the other elaborating process models. That is, in developing an inter-
organizational system the goals of the system To Be must first be determined. Then
it must be ensured that the goals of the individual organizations come together to
satisfy these. This is the intentional alignment issue in inter-organizational sys-
tems. Further, the points of interaction between the participating systems must