Companies should get more out of their investments in information technology (IT). A better alignment of business objectives and IT investments is one approach, the further integration of existing applications another.

The main aim of ACIBS-D was to highlight the key issues for enterprises integrating their large heterogeneous base of existing information systems. The application viewpoint will be pursued in this integration process and the link to the business processes will be made explicit.
Companies should get more out of their investments in information technology (IT). A better alignment of business objectives and IT investment is 1 approach, the further integration of existing applications another. The main aim of the project was to highlight the key issues for enterprises integrating their large heterogeneous base of existing information systems. The application viewpoint was pursued in this integration process and the link to the business processes was made explicit. The project produced: a statement of needs and key issues for integration, as well as a methodology for tacklingcomputer integrated business (CIB) issues, and a software demonstrator showing the feasibility, usefulness and bottlenecks of integration. The project had 4 workpackages, concentrating on:
defining user needs and key issues, with the strong participation of end users;
selecting adequate tools, including a platform, modelling tools, data management services, etc;
designing the demonstrator;
constructing the demonstrator.

The project addressed 3 target groups:
management, facing strategic decisions on IT use, but often isolated when trying to understand and control its investments;
end users, needing to exploit IT opportunities more effectively;
consultants and designers supporting management and end users.

The results permitted active pursuit of the development of the toolset in order to support consultants, designers and planners in simulating the higher levels of integration of applications in enterprises. This will ensure a better forecast of benefits.