A Roadmap for information technology governance

Abstract

Engineering enterprises traditionally adopt a technology-centred approach to asset lifecycle management, where technical aspects of asset configuration, design, and operation command most resources and are considered first in their planning and design stage. On the other hand, asset lifecycle support infrastructure like information technologies to support asset lifecycle, lifecycle processes maturity, and other organisational factors are considered relatively late in the process and sometimes only after the assets are operational. In this way, these enterprises mature technologically along the continuum of standalone technologies to integrated systems, and in so doing aim to achieve maturity of processes enabled by these technologies, and the skills associated with their operation. However, information technologies influence and are influenced by the context of their implementation and have a direct relationship with organisational evolution. Therefore, the success of information technologies implementation for asset lifecycle management depends on their alignment with business processes. This paper provides a case for governance of information technologies utilised for asset lifecycle management. It is of particular interest to the organisations that are currently using Enterprise Resource Planning systems like SAP as the core technology for asset lifecycle management or have adopted a Service Oriented Architecture, or those that have adopted both. It concludes that information technologies should not be taken as technical constructs, these are at the core of strategic alignment, value delivery, resource management, and risk management; which calls for needs to understand and govern the overall information technology architecture of the organisation.