Enterprise Architecture Requirements for Digital Transformation Projects in an Automotive Industry

Abstract

The adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies and it’s concepts are helping develop more collaborative, connected, and intelligent production systems. In particular, IT projects have used a digital transformation approach to deploy such technologies in different types of companies, including the automotive sector. The digital transformation literature has extensively focused on the required technical knowledge for the implementation of new technologies and associated concepts. However, the literature does not present an approach that focuses on the integration of these technologies and concepts with other business elements such as strategy and processes, leading to a more interoperable organizational environment. By definition, this is the realm of enterprise architecture (EA), whose main concern is to align IT strategies with business strategies, considering the resources and processes necessary to implement those strategies, and allowing the required integration of the elements that can act together in a dynamic business environment. This paper helps bridge the gap between the alignment of technology and business in digital transformation projects by proposing an extended list of EA requirements or attributes based on existing frameworks. A content analysis of the literature for the extraction of the main characteristics of digital transformation projects was performed, considering aspects of Industry 4.0 and EA frameworks as background. As a result, the characteristics that best fit within the EA frameworks are grouped, deriving an extended list of EA attributes oriented for digital transformation projects.