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Towards Applying Normalized Systems Theory to Create Evolvable Enterprise Resource Planning Software: A Case Study

Authors:
Ornchanok Chongsombut
Jan Verelst
Peter De Bruyn
Herwig Mannaert
Philip Huysmans

Keywords: Normalized Systems theory; evolvability; software architecture

Abstract:
Evolvability is widely considered to be an important concern for the design and development of software architectures, particularly in the area of information systems (IS). Current IS continue to struggle to provide evolvability, especially Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Complexity in ERP packages leads to a limit on changeable software. Normalized Systems (NS) theory has been proposed with the purpose of incorporate evolvability of IS. In this paper, an existing ERP package was subjected to reverse engineering in order to analyze and explore in terms of combinatorial effects (CEs), of which NS theory prescribes that they are harmful for evolvability. The results indicate that it is possible to redesign a data model for an existing ERP, adhering to NS theory. We also identified some issues and limitations with the current version of the ERP package.

Pages: 172 to 177

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: August 21, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-498-5

Location: Rome, Italy

Dates: from August 21, 2016 to August 25, 2016