Several factors such as globalisation of markets and production, shifts in competition criteria (from "cost" to "quality" and "time"), evolution of human factors (operators and clients), new manufacturing technologies, advances and integration of the enabling technologies of computers and communications, have shaped the modern enterprise during the last decades. One of the most significant evolutions is the trend for "intra enterprise" (and more recently) "inter enterprise" integration. A lot of efforts have lately been made by academia, industry people, professional associations and standardisation bodies to produce conceptual frameworks, methodologies, commercial support tools and standards for enterprise integration. In this context , the author makes impottant streads towards a new discipline, namely "enterprise engineering". This is defined in the book (on page 30) as " the an of understanding, defining, specifying, analysing and implementing business processes for the enterprise entire life cycle, so that the enterprise can achieve its objectives, be cost effective, and be more competitive in its market environment". It is placed by the author "at the crossroad of many disciplines concerned with the design, re-engineering and continuous improvement of business processes of manufacturing enterprises (logistics, system engineering, information system engineering, software engineering, computer communication engineering)".
by François B. Vernadat
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