Jean Leonardus Gerardus (Jan) Dietz (born 20 June 1945) is a Dutch Information Systems researcher,Professor Emeritus of Information Systems Design at the Delft University of Technology, known for the development of the Design & Engineering Methodology for Organisations. [1] and his work on Enterprise Engineering. [2]
Born in Brunssum, Dietz studied at the Eindhoven University of Technology, where in 1970 he obtained his MSc in Electrical Engineering (control systems) and in 1987 his Doctoral Degree on the thesis titled "Modelleren en specificeren van informatiesystemen" (Modelling and Specifying Information Systems) [3] under supervision of Theo Bemelmans and Kees van Hee.
Dietz has been practitioner in the field of automation and information systems from 1970 to 1980. He (co-)developed one of the first relational model based production control systems at Philips Factories, a state of the art computer accounting system at Eindhoven University of Technology, and a terminal-based, interactive theatre reservation system. In 1980 he returned to academia. In 1988 he was appointed Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Maastricht (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration) [4] where he started the development of the DEMO methodology. From September 1994 to Oct 2009 he was Professor of Information Systems Design at Delft University of Technology. [5] Since 2010 he is visiting professor of Enterprise Engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST - Technical University of Lisbon), [6] as well as visiting professor of Enterprise Engineering at Czech Technical University in Prague (Faculty of Informatics, Center for Conceptual Modelling and Implementations). [7] [8]
Dietz has been chairman of the Dutch professional association of informaticians (VRI) and board member of the Dutch association for IT architecture (NAF). He has also been editorial board member of several journals, and has been in the program committee of - and has chaired - numerous conferences. He has been the Dutch national representative in IFIP TC8 on Information Systems for many years and is member of IFIP WG8.1 on design and Evaluation of Information Systems. [5] He has co-founded the Ciao! Network for Enterprise Engineering and the Enterprise Engineering Institute (formerly called DEMO Centre of Expertise)
Dietz' main research interests is in modelling, (re)designing and (re)engineering of organisations, and in the development of ICT-applications to support them. [5] Since 2012 Dietz has focussed on the emerging discipline of Enterprise Engineering, which lies in between information systems engineering and the organizational sciences.
Inspired by the Language Action Perspective in the 1980s Dietz has been developing a methodology for transaction modelling and analysing and representing business processes, called Design & Engineering Methodology for Organisations (DEMO). [9] The Language Action Perspective itself is largely based on the speech act theory developed by John Austin and John Searle. It was introduced in the field of information systems by the computer scientists Fernando Flores and J.J. Ludlow early 1980s. [10] In contrast to traditional views of data flow, the language/action perspective emphasizes what people do while communicating, how they create a common reality by means of language, and how communication brings about the coordination of their activities". [11]
In DEMO the basic pattern of a business transaction is composed of the following three phases: [12]
Transactions are the building blocks of business processes. The DEMO methodology gives the analyst an understanding of the essence of business processes and organisations.
Enterprise Ontology is about the need to develop organisational models which are abstracted from implementation, in order to be able to develop effective and efficient inter- and intra-enterprise information systems. These models need to be so that they are understood both by business people, who are defining their functionality, and software engineers, who are constructing and implementing the software systems that realise the system's functionality. The idea of business components for modeling information systems is very valuable since they directly reflect the business rules and the constraints that apply to the enterprise domain. [13]
The identification of business components seems still to be in its infancy. The notion of enterprise ontology, as developed by Jan Dietz at Delft University of Technology, appears to be a powerful revelation of the essence of an enterprise or an enterprise network. Dietz' research seeks to improve the identification of business components based on the ontological model of an enterprise, while at the same time satisfying well defined quality criteria. The results of applying the developed identification method are reusable and self-contained business components with well defined interaction points that facilitate the accessing and execution of coherent packages of business functionality. [13]
Dietz has published over 250 scientific and professional papers as well as several books: [14] [15] Books:
Articles, chapters and papers, a selection:
The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a global organisation for researchers and professionals working in the field of computing to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing.
Enterprise integration is a technical field of enterprise architecture, which is focused on the study of topics such as system interconnection, electronic data interchange, product data exchange and distributed computing environments.
Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.
Enterprise engineering is the body of knowledge, principles, and practices used to design all or part of an enterprise. An enterprise is a complex socio-technical system that comprises people, information, and technology that interact with each other and their environment in support of a common mission. One definition is: "an enterprise life-cycle oriented discipline for the identification, design, and implementation of enterprises and their continuous evolution", supported by enterprise modelling. The discipline examines each aspect of the enterprise, including business processes, information flows, material flows, and organizational structure. Enterprise engineering may focus on the design of the enterprise as a whole, or on the design and integration of certain business components.
Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM) is a generalised enterprise architecture framework for enterprise integration and business process engineering. It identifies the set of components recommended for use in enterprise engineering.
Peter Bernus is a Hungarian Australian scientist and Associate Professor of Enterprise Architecture at the School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
John Krogstie is a Norwegian computer scientist, professor in information systems at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, and an expert in the field of enterprise modelling.
Colette Rolland is a French computer scientist and Professor of Computer Science in the department of Mathematics and Informatics at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. She is a leading researcher in the area of information and knowledge systems, known for her work on meta-modeling, particularly goal modelling and situational method engineering.
Ronald K. (Ron) Stamper is a British computer scientist, formerly a researcher in the LSE and emeritus professor at the University of Twente, known for his pioneering work in Organisational semiotics, and the creation of the MEASUR methodology and the SEDITA framework.
Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO) is an enterprise modelling methodology for transaction modelling, and analysing and representing business processes. It is developed since the 1980s by Jan Dietz and others, and is inspired by the language/action perspective
Jacobus Nicolaas (Sjaak) Brinkkemper is a Dutch computer scientist, and Full Professor of organisation and information at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University.
Henk Gerard Sol is a Dutch organizational theorist and Emeritus Professor of Business Engineering and ICT at Groningen University. His research focuses on the development of services enabled by ICT, management information systems, decision enhancement and telematics.
Junichi Iijima, Japanese, Enterprise Engineer and Professor of the Department of Industrial Management and Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan.
Henderik Alex (Erik) Proper is a Dutch computer scientist, an FNR PEARL Laureate, and a senior research manager within the Computer Science (ITIS) department of the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). He is also adjunct professor in data and knowledge engineering at the University of Luxembourg. He is known for work on conceptual modeling, enterprise architecture and enterprise engineering.
Kecheng Liu is a Chinese/British expert in organisational semiotics a professor of applied informatics at the University of Reading, and a professor of management science and engineering.
Johannes Adrianus Petrus (Jan) Hoogervorst is a Dutch organizational theorist, business executive, management consultant, and Professor Enterprise Governance and Enterprise Engineering at the University of Antwerp, known for his work in the field of enterprise engineering.
J.B.F. (Hans) Mulder is a Dutch computer scientist, Venture manager in the IT industry, and Professor at the University of Antwerp, known for his work on enterprise engineering.
Martinus (Martin) Op 't Land is a Dutch organizational theorist, consultant and Professor of Enterprise Engineering at the University of Antwerp and at Antwerp Management School, known for his contributions in the field of Enterprise Architecture.
Jan Verelst is a Belgian computer scientist, Professor and Dean of the Department of Management Information Systems at the University of Antwerp, and Professor at the Antwerp Management School, known for his work on Normalized Systems.
The history of business architecture has its origins in the 1980s. In the next decades business architecture has developed into a discipline of "cross-organizational design of the business as a whole" closely related to enterprise architecture. The concept of business architecture has been proposed as a blueprint of the enterprise, as a business strategy, and also as the representation of a business design.