An Enterprise Architecture Development Method in Chinese Manufacturing Industry

Enterprise informationization in Chinese manufacturing industry has marched for long time. Facing much more new technologies and more and more complex IT systems, enterprises are encountering the challenge of improving and providing the business value of IT. How to plan an enterprise-wide IT systems blueprint to fulfill the enterprise business demands and get the great value of IT is a critical factor for every enterprise to survive in the competitive environment. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an IT enabler and IT management tool to support the enterprise mission. Using EA properly, enterprises can get their business benefits and improve their innovation competency. This paper introduces EA and its components and presents a practical EA development method. To illustrate this method, we take a manufacturer as a case and describe the whole EA development process in detail. Finally, some concerns and suggestions are also put forward in the discussion part.