Replacement Of Legacy Systems Research Articles

Information Elaboration and Coopetition: Participation in the Replacement of Legacy Systems

Legacy information system (LIS) replacement pro-jects are increasingly complex. Consequently, they require cooperation to integrate different functional knowledge to support organizational business processes. However, cooperation on cross-functional LIS replacement project teams face inherent competition for scarce resources and conflicting functional interests. The common assertion is to reduce or eliminate this competition. We suggest that the potential benefits of competition complement the known benefits of cooperation. Thus, this study explores the extent to which different configurations of simultaneous competition and cooperation (i.e., coopetition) enhance decision-making processes in the context of LIS replacement. Information elaboration theory guides decision-making in the coopetition–performance relationship. We propose a model that relates different patterns of coopetition, based on a two continua approach, to three information elaboration techniques and their impact on system design quality. We test the model using a survey administered to 161 pairs of matched IT executives and managerial leaders knowledgeable about LIS replacement. Analysis indicates that cooperation-centric coopetition (strong cooperation with some competition) best enhances decision-making processes and improves system design quality.

Detection of False Data Injection Attacks in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks Exploiting Network Numerical Sparsity

Existing studies on false data injection attacks, a type of stealth attacks against sensor networks aimed at compromising the system in the cyber-physical security domain, have primarily been conducted on wired systems for applications such as advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid. However, the emerging trend of the widespread deployment of industrial wireless sensor networks for various new functionalities as well as for replacement of legacy systems, on the other hand, calls for both data aggregation methods that are cost-effective, scalable and easily implementable, as well as feasible approaches to detect injected false data in coordination with such data aggregation models. In this paper, we propose a numerical sparsity-based detection scheme operating upon a network coding-based data aggregation model paired with compressed sensing-based decoding, against attacks that alter the overall network sparsity by compromising and injecting falsified data into multiple sensor nodes in the network. Both the applicative scope and performance of the proposed scheme are analyzed and compared to a more straightforward but realistically challenging approach of directly examining network compressibility, i.e. the number of sufficiently large readings of active nodes extracted from the decoded network signal. Numerical studies illustrate the proposed method is applicable for the usually sparsely active industrial wireless sensor networks, and offers faster, reliable decisions when the aforementioned false data injection attacks are launched.

Requirements analysis gamification in legacy system replacement projects

The replacement of legacy systems in the public sector is fraught with project delays, budgetary overruns, technological and business process complexities. Moreover, the software implemented to replace legacy systems is developed or configured to largely mimic their features and functionality in order to minimize the disruption to organizational operations that accompanies the introduction of new technology. When the requirements for legacy replacement primarily replicate existing applications and processes, opportunities for business process improvement are bypassed. However, it is difficult for practitioners to transcend the business and systems models prevalent in their organizations for many years. The challenge is to support them to overcome such a difficulty, and be creative and engaged during requirements discussions. Our research aims to evaluate the utility of gamifying the requirements activities during legacy replacement projects for scoping replacement systems efforts in a way that takes advantage of opportunities for innovation while minimizing unnecessary changes to the status quo. The supplementation of the requirements process with game elements is explored in our research through the development of a requirements discussion game (RE-PROVO) and its evaluation by practitioners in two government agencies. Our findings reveal that key elements of RE-PROVO, including competition, anonymity and roleplay, encourage a more critical evaluation of business requirements in legacy replacement projects, but that the success of requirements gamification is contingent on a proper incentivization model which takes organizational culture and values into account.

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems for Project-Based Firms: Benefits, Costs & Implementation Challenges

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are configurable enterprise-wide information system packages that integrate information and information-based processes within and across functional areas in an organization. They have been widely adopted in many organizations and accepted as a de facto industry standard for the replacement of legacy systems. This paper analyzes and presents the costs and benefits of ERP systems for project-based industries, which have lagged behind other major industries in adopting ERP systems due to their project-centric nature and the high stakes involved in ERP implementation. The challenges during the process of ERP implementations are also identified as part of the effort to understand the implied costs of an ERP system. The evidence of the costs and benefits are drawn from previous studies and the analysis of the prevailing working practices in project-based firms. The classification of the costs and benefits constitutes a cost and benefit taxonomy which can be used to enable executives in project-based firms to make informed decisions on their ERP system investments.

Strategic Approaches to ERP Implementation

ABSTRACT Strategic reasoning behind ERP triggers a specific path to ERP implementation. In this article we present a simple typology of ERP implementation approaches based on literature review and an empirical research for both manufacturing and services. We distinguish between bottom-up and top-down approaches and between process-oriented and technology-oriented approaches and we discuss the differences between the four resulting types of implementation approaches. INTRODUCTION During the 1980's and 1990's, many organizations were growing through mergers and acquisitions resulting in ever higher levels of systems incompatibility (involving different legacy-type mainframe systems). At the multinational level such issues only multiplied several-fold (Ives & Jarvenpaa, 1993). The challenges of increasing competition and expanding markets, the search for business solutions in the face of the changes resulting from mergers, acquisitions, take-over and restructuring processes, and rising customer expectations increased the pressure on firms to manage total costs in the supply chain, to shorten throughput times, reduce inventories, expand product variety, provide more reliable delivery dates and better customer service, improve quality, and efficiently coordinate global demand, supply, and production (Shankarnarayanan, 2000; Umble, 2003). ERP systems were offered with the promise that they would meet many if not all of these challenges simultaneously. On the other hand, the demand for ERP software packages was also driven by frustration with information system departments' inability to cope with systems integration (Holland & Light, 1999), the year 2000 problem, and the consolidation of currencies in Europe (Chung & Snyder, 1999). Developments in large, globalized companies were subsequently followed by smaller, local firms equipping themselves with custom-designed and/or industry designed packages primarily to lower their costs and add value in their services to their clients (e.g., local ERP suppliers: Acto, Exact, Caseware, etc). ERP implementation enables the convergence of organizational knowledge throughout the firm (Baskerville, 2000). This convergence may draw together functional areas within the organization such as manufacturing, purchasing, inventory management, and transportation, and generate synergies that lead to more efficient product flows throughout the enterprise (Davenport, 1998). ERP software packages strive to support essentially all the processes in a firm's value chain. Most IT managers responsible for managing their organizations' ERP project viewed the ERP systems as their organizations' most strategic planning platform (Sweat, 1998). Yet despite the scope of offerings, most customers inevitably found that at least 20% of their needed functionality was missing from the package they had selected (Scott & Kaindall, 2000). The early literature on ERP implementation reflects the fact that ERP started mainly with larger companies and was then taken up by smaller ones. It tends to describe the needs and opportunities of small companies as a subset of those facing large companies. (Markus, 2001) To a large extent, the development of ERP packages and accompanying implementation routines were based on the same assumptions. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that there is a wide variety of motives for ERP adoption, even among large corporations, but also between large and small firms and between firms from different sectors. These differences in motive have an impact on the implementation approach and the subsequent implementation process. Some companies have largely technical reasons, mainly replacement of legacy systems and Y2K problems, for investing in enterprise systems. Other companies focus largely on business reasons for adopting enterprise systems. They expect to derive a competitive advantage from the adoption of such systems. …

Comparing the Prioritization of ERP System Effectiveness Measures by Organizational Actors: A Focus on IT Professionals and Business Managers

ABSTRACT Modern organizations adopt Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) to integrate their organizational data resources into unified systems. Researchers tend to concentrate on implementation issues with only a handful studying system or in adopting organizations. In fact, none has studied how key organizational actors prioritize or rank relevant measures or items related to the of such systems. This study is designed to fill this gap in research as it aims at investigating how two organizational stakeholder groups, i.e. information technology (IT) professionals and business managers prioritize relevant measures related to systems effectiveness. Using surveys in two European countries with a good record of adoption, the study collected data from 66 respondents in 44 diverse, private, industrial organizations. Prior literature suggests that differences exist between the two organizational groups regarding how each perceives organizational-IT issues. However, this study's findings showed that no significant statistical differences exist between the two groups on the all the measures operationalized for assessment with the exception of one dimension: the Vendor/Consultant Quality. The implications of the finding for both practice and research are discussed. INTRODUCTION An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is packaged business software that integrates organizational processes and functions into a unified system. systems are being adopted for a variety of reasons, including the replacement of legacy systems and cost reductions (Klaus, et al., 2000; Davenport, 1998; 2000; Wu, et al., 2005). The report from AMR Research (2005) indicates that the market worldwide is to grow from US$47.8 billion in 2004 to US$64.8 billion by 2009. These figures or amounts underscore the popularity of the software among organizations, globally. A comprehensive study of the literature shows that researchers often concentrate on issues related to the implementation and adoption of systems (Abdinnour-Helm, et al., 2003; Ifinedo, 2006; Wu, et al., 2005; Galy & LeMaster, 2006) with only a handful researching the or of such systems (Gable et al., 2003; Sedera et al., 2002, 2004; Ifinedo, 2006). Here, ERP systems effectiveness refers to the utilization of such systems to enhance the organizational goals (Thong, et al., 1996; Myers, et al., 1997; Gable, et al., 2003; Galy & LeMaster, 2006). This definition differs in scope from the technical implementation of such systems wherein measurement indicators such as cost overruns, project management metrics, and time estimates are considered vitally important (Martin, 1998; Markus & Tanis, 2000). Some of the dimensions used in this study to represent include system quality, information quality, individual impact, and organizational impact. Apparently, these are the same dimensions or factors often used in the information systems (IS) evaluations literature (DeLone & McLean, 1992). Importantly, the term success is used interchanging with effectiveness in the literature (Thong, et al., 1996), and this research study extends the foregoing terms to ERP success and ERP effectiveness, which incidentally are treated as having the same connotations here. That said, the paucity of research on system in the literature is the primary motivation for this study, and secondarily this study aims at responding to the calls made by IS researchers (Gable, et al., 2003; Ifinedo, 2006) for more studies to focus on other aspects of systems. The issue of or assessment is an important area of research because for adopting organizations to maximize their returns from investments in such complex and expensive IT systems, the viewpoints of key organizational members on the of such systems need to be investigated (and addressed). …

4.2.1 A Case Study in the Replacement of Legacy Systems with an Enterprise Resource Planning System

AbstractThis paper presents two case studies that involve the process of replacing multiple legacy systems with a comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The paper will focus on the processes that each company took in evaluating the systems and the data housed in these systems. The lessons learned and an assessment of each company is presented at the conclusion of this paper.

Information technology mediated Business Process Management - lessons from the supply chain

For most of the twentieth century, organisations in both the private and public sectors have adopted a functional structure, segmenting their work practices and decision processes into discrete compartments in the form of departments, divisions or groups. Not surprisingly, the information-processing infrastructure, which has been developed to support these functions, is typically composed of applications subsystems, which may be reasonably efficient in themselves but are frequently difficult to link together. Today, this legacy of discrete applications systems poses a challenge to any organisation trying to adopt a more integrated approach to its decision-making processes. thinking has highlighted the deficiencies of the traditional highly specialist structures, and offered alternative paradigms and models, but the practical guidance which has been offered concerning the replacement of legacy systems has been sometimes contradictory and appears to have been at best ineffective and at worst damaging to the companies adopting it. In order to gain further insight into this issue, it is appropriate to study the experiences of practitioners of Chain Management (SCM). Having abandoned a traditionalist and functionally orientated approach to Distribution and Warehouse Management, many companies have now taken a systems based view of their physical distribution networks. Seeing Logistics as a networked mega-function has led to significant performance improvements, without the need for major information systems replacement. Furthermore, a few practitioners have now gone even further and have adopted a consciously process oriented approach to logistics, following a Chain Management approach. There is emerging evidence that this can lead to further significant improvements in performance, once again without recourse to wholesale revision of information systems. The case of Xerox's Customer Supply Assurance Managers (CSAMs) provides grounds for optimism. There is at least initial evidence that radically different business processes can be introduced into a well-established company without the delays and dangers associated with major disruption to its legacy systems. Indeed, it is possible that the adoption of a Business Process (BPM) approach, combined with the use of existing information processing techniques to interrogate and surround the legacy systems may prove to be the most acceptable solution to the legacy systems problem. The underlying but emerging lesson would appear to be that for many organisations the key to greater effectiveness may be producing better informed people, empowered to make wider ranging decisions, rather than producing technically more sophisticated information systems.