The people, the process or the technology?: Using the ACE framework to make tradeoffs in service delivery improvement

ABSTRACT

In today's service-oriented economy there is a critical need for prescriptive and evolutionary methods to improve the performance of services in complex enterprises. The contribution here is the Adaptive Complex Enterprise (ACE) method for overall system improvement that integrates techniques from computer science and systems engineering. A case study of an IT department within the healthcare industry is used to (a) characterize the service challenges, (b) analyze the tradeoffs and (c) make the systematic, continuous selection of improvements to achieve global Lean through local behavior.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Management techniques (e.g., PERT/CPM)

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Strategic information systems planning; Staffing

General Terms:
Experimentation, Management, Measurement, Performance

Keywords:
adaptive complex enterprise, autonomic, continuous improvement, lean, services, transactions