The codification of an enterprise architecture framework in a global mining company

Abstract

With its headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, the mining house has 20 operations on four continents and several exploration programmes in both established and new gold-producing regions around the world , including exploration offices that serve in the region of about 10 000 direct IT users. The purpose of this research is to understand the prerequisites required to achieve the tactical objectives identified in the 2011 Knowledge & Information Technology strategy and effectively implement an enterprise architecture framework at the mining house. Growing emphasis on the board and executive committee’s understanding of IT, which is primarily driven by corporate governance and with recent enactment of the new Companies Act, good governance is no longer just recommended but is enforced and requires annual reporting. Growing compliance requirements as governments and legal entities become more aware of the dependencies that are created through the evolution in IT. The Knowledge & Information Technology department mission is to provide the IT tools necessary for people to do their jobs, the ecosystem to translate data into wisdom, and, in doing so, deliver value to the mining house shareholders, employees, and business and social partners.

The vision of the Knowledge & Information Technology department is that the employees of the mining house will have access to secure, common IT infrastructure and systems that support business processes, deliver value and that create opportunities for the sharing of best practices, great ideas and technologies, and the reduction in duplicated effort, waste and inefficiencies. Because of the disparate status of information systems and technology in the mining house, there is a need for better and more comprehensive standardisation of the global systems and technology environment. These efforts are important for the planning and delivery of key initiatives within the strategy as defined. The first formal reference to information systems architecture was made in 1987 by J.A. Zachman in an article that was published in the IBM Systems Journal. In the extract of the article written by Zachman, he explains: “With increasing size and complexity of the implementations of information systems, it is necessary to use some logical construct (or architecture) for defining and controlling the interfaces and the integration of all of the components of a system” (Zachman, 1987).

Focus on delivering business objectives that are identified by the business. It is important that EA teams understand their enterprises and their strategies and goals. It is also important that they understand the CIO’s strategy and how it aligns with the organisation’s strategy. The categorisation of EA in the mining house has not been attempted before. Enterprise architecture is systemic by nature and by default relies on an inclusive approach, which implies that codification should consider the IT organisation as a whole. Various components were identified that could contribute to the successful codification of EA in the mining house. Benchmarking EA activities throughout the global organisation and understanding the deficiencies or perceived maturity levels will assist in choosing an effective way forward for the codification of an organisation-wide EA. Empirical study assists in achieving this objective, and along with the dissertation statement it is critical to the success of a dissertation. The study fills a gap in that it aims to deliver or guide the tactical outputs supporting the K&IT strategy. The K&IT strategy, in turn, supports the business strategy with the aim of maximising returns to shareholders. Codifying EA would simplify complex technology environments and clarify the vague knowledge that currently exists of the environment. This premise relies on strong governance to guide compliance and ultimately simplify the management of IT and increase its value contribution to business. Lastly, the implementation of EA in the mining house should ultimately enhance the Knowledge & Information Technology strategy and effectively support the business strategy to maximise returns to shareholders.