You are an Enterprise Architect at a food production and distribution company. The primary goal of the company is to maximize profit while satisfying the needs of consumers for its products. Its customers are demanding food that is produced sustainably, safely, and transparently while reducing environmental impact.
The business is highly mechanized, and this mechanization has caused a decrease in the number of workers needed, together with a focus on agricultural engineering to improve the efficiency of its farms, its processing facilities, and the overall enterprise. As part of this, the company has established an Enterprise Architecture (EA) practice based on the TOGAF standard, using it as the method and guiding framework. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the sponsor of EA practice. The introduction of EA has enabled the decision-makers to have valuable insights into the different aspects of the business.
Global warming has caused a lot of poor harvests, and the company is producing fewer crops than before. This combined with an increase in costs for energy, feed, fuel, and fertilizer has led to a significant decrease in profits. The rising costs and reduced profits mean that the company is unable to take as much planned action on climate measures as it would like, such as reducing its carbon footprint. In response to the situation, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has decided that big changes are needed that will lead both to improved crop production and profitability. They must look to all aspects of the business. This includes looking at the mix of crops to mitigate for the change in climate.
The company will also cease to process its own crops and will sell off its processing facilities. Thus, the target market will change, and the end-products will be different and more varied. A formal request for architecture change has been approved. At this stage, there is no fixed scope, shared vision, or objectives.
Refer to the scenario:
You have been asked to propose the best approach for architecture development to realize the CEO's change in direction for the company.
Scenario:
Please read this scenario prior to answering the question
The ABC company is a major supplier in the automotive industry, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio with manufacturing plants in Chicago, Sao Paulo, Stuttgart, Yokohama, and Seoul. Each of these plants has been operating its own planning and production scheduling systems, as well as custom developed applications that drive the automated production equipment at each plant.
The company is implementing lean manufacturing principles to minimize waste and improve the efficiency of all of its production operations. During a recent exercise held for internal quality improvement, it was determined that a significant reduction in process waste could be achieved by replacing the current planning and scheduling systems with a common Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system located in the Cleveland data center. This central system would provide support to each of the plants replacing the functionality in the existing systems. It would also eliminate the need for full data centers at each of the plant facilities. A reduced number of IT staff could support the remaining applications. In some cases, a third-party contractor could provide those staff.
The company Enterprise Architecture department has been operating for several years and has mature, well-developed architecture governance and development processes that are strongly based on TOGAF 9. At a recent meeting, the Architecture Review Board approved a Request for Architecture Work from the Chief Engineer of Global Manufacturing Operations who is the project sponsor. The request covered the initial architectural investigations and the development of a comprehensive architecture to plan the transformation.
The Common ERP Deployment architecture project team has now been formed, and the project team has been asked to develop an Architecture Vision that will achieve the desired outcomes and benefits. Some of the plant managers have expressed concern about the security and reliability of driving their planning and production scheduling from a central system located in Cleveland. The Chief Engineer wants to know how these concerns can be addressed.
Refer to the Scenario
You are serving as the Lead Enterprise Architect of the newly-formed Common ERP Deployment architecture project team.
As the Common ERP Deployment architecture project team assembles for its initial meeting, many of the participants have voiced concerns about the sweeping scope of the initiative. Others are confident that they know a solution that will work. During the meeting, a number of alternative recommendations for how to proceed are put forward by members of the team.
You have been asked to select the most appropriate recommendation to ensure that the team evaluates different approaches to the problem and clarifies the requirements for the architecture.
Based on TOGAF 9, which of the following is the best answer?
Which of the following is the representation of a related set of concerns?
Complete the sentence. Actions arising from the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment technique should be incorporated in the ___________