The decrease in the number of municipalities creates opportunities for new, more efficient business models in the public sector. The municipal Tiera and Taitoa service centres provide specialist services allowing municipalities to create intuitive and cost-efficient e-government services. Ixonos was chosen to develop and produce architecture specifications, integration plans and architecture descriptions to enable the launch of the service centres.
Background
The municipal service centre project aims to develop the processes and e-government services of municipalities and municipal federations. The service centres are intended to help municipalities focus their development resources on the improvement of services as well as to offer inhabitants richer, cross-municipal e-government services. To reach these objectives, the service centres needed essential ICT services and solutions. In addition, those solutions were to be incorporated into the integrated service environment of the service centre companies.
To meet these challenges, the service centres required enterprise architecture descriptions and a reference architecture for municipalities as well as specifications for an architecture governance model. Ixonos was chosen to develop and produce the architecture plans, integration plans and architecture descriptions for the service centres to be launched.
Solution
Ixonos developed and produced the architecture plans, integration plans and architecture descriptions for the municipal service centres. The e-government consulting and specialist work started with a focus on the enterprise architectures of the service centre companies and on the municipal enterprise architecture.
One method Ixonos’ experts used to create the specifications was a series of workshops focusing on the ICT environment of the service centre companies as well as on SOA strategy, master data, the SOA of Kuntien Tiera Oy, prioritised services (such as application services for the health and social services) and a branch-independent municipal enterprise architecture. Ixonos also took an active part in positioning the architecture work within the national model for governance of municipal architectures.
In carrying out the specification and planning work, Ixonos applied architecture practices that have been successfully used in the private sector. Examples include third-party content-definitions and standards as well as architecture tools and enterprise architecture development processes. Ixonos’ specifications allow municipalities to obtain a complete model of a municipal enterprise architecture specification. The model complies with the KuntaIT architecture method and takes into account the specifications of national projects. Ixonos actively emphasises a branch-independent specification that allows for national overall optimisation.
Benefits
Ixonos’ architecture and integration planning allows the service centre companies to launch their operations in step with the implementation of the services and in accordance with the completed architecture descriptions. The municipalities constituting the clientele of the service centre companies gain a complete, SOA-compliant enterprise architecture model that is freely available and thus saves resources. Residents benefit from transparent service processes, equal, high quality services and user-friendly, comprehensive 24/7 self-service channels.
Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, co-ordinates the municipal service centre project, which aims to develop the processes and e-government services of municipalities and municipal federations.
Kuntien Tiera Oy provides ICT specialist, application and infrastructure services to municipal service centres. The company co-ordinates municipal development projects and service requirements. It also creates unified, useful solutions and services from individual applications provided by its suppliers.
Kunnan Taitoa Oy provides financial management and HR services. The company aims to ensure the efficiency of financial and HR processes by supplying planners and decision-makers with consistent, high quality information about municipal income and expenditure.