Dennis E. Wisnosky (born 1943) is an American consultant, writer and former chief architect and chief technical officer of the
US DoD
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
Business Mission Area (BMA) within the Office of Business Transformation. He is known as one of the creators and initiators of the
Integrated Definition (IDEFs) language, a standard for modeling and analysis in management and business improvement efforts.
Biography
Dennis E. Wisnosky was born in
Washington, Pennsylvania
Washington is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Pennsylvania. A part of the Greater Pittsburgh area in the southwestern part of the state, the city is home to Washington & Jefferson College and Pony League baseball. The populat ...
. and received his bachelor's degree in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and mathematics from
California University of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Western University, California (commonly known as PennWest California) is a public university campus in California, Pennsylvania and one of three campuses of Pennsylvania Western University, part of the Pennsylvania State System o ...
, a master's in
management science
Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...
from the
University of Dayton
The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...
, and a master's in
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
from the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
.
[Dennis E. Wisnosky](_blank)
Chief Technical Officer of thepartment of Defense (DoD) Business Mission Area. Accessed February 22, 2009.
Wisnosky joined the US Air Force Materials Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio in 1971, where he headed the computer and information services. In 1976 he became manager of its
ICAM program. In 1986 he founded Wizdom Systems and became its chief executive officer.
[Jim Strothman (2003)]
Leaders of the Pack: From the plant to academia, InTech's 50 most influential industry innovators
. August 1, 2003 Accessed Feb 22, 2009. In August 2006 he was appointed chief technical officer (CTO) of the Department of Defense (DoD) Business Mission Area within the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Business Transformation (OUSD (BT)).
As of 2013 he left DoD to lead the standards implementation process for FIBO, the financial industry business ontology that is a joint effort of The Enterprise Data Management Council in conjunction with the Object Management Group.
He has received numerous honors for his work, including in May 1997, ''Fortune'' magazine recognized Wisnosky as "one of the five heroes of manufacturing",
the Federal 100 Award in 2007, the Award for Excellence in Government Leadership in 2012 and more.
Work
Wisnosky has made contributions in the fields of information technology (IT) consulting and training, including
business process reengineering
Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aims to help organizations fundam ...
and
enterprise architecture. His specialty has been deriving solutions to effectively move organizations from their "As-Is" state of inefficiency to their "To-Be" state of achieving strategic and tactical objectives.
Integrated computer-aided manufacturing
Dennis E. Wisnosky and Dan L. Shunk are recognized as co-founders of the
ICAM program, which they founded in 1976.
[Charles M. Savage (1996). ''Fifth Generation Management : Co-creating Through Virtual Enterprising, Dynamic Teaming, and Knowledge Networking'' Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996. . p. 184.] This program started as U.S. Air Force funded program for Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing, and was brought about by the "needs and pressures in state-of-the-art technologies, economics, increasing human limitations, aerospace design and manufacturing complexity, computer developments, and competition from abroad."
In the 1980s Joseph Harrington focusses CIM on the manufacturing company as a whole. Harrington considered manufacturing a "monolithic function". This book discussed how the functions could interact as a seamless whole. Harrington was helpful to Wisnosky and Shunk in designing the
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
's ICAM program in the mid-1970s, and their work, in turn, influenced Harrington's second book".
Group vice president, entrepreneur and CEO
Beginning in 1980, until asked to join the DoD, Wisnosky was a director and then an officer in public companies,
and then founded and successfully exited, a series of his own companies – the Wizdom companies. These organizations specialized in delivering the products and services to manufacturing industries in the areas of robotics, factory control systems and business process reengineering.
Chief technical officer
As chief technical officer, Wisnosky was responsible for providing expert guidance and oversight in the design, development, and modification of the federated architectures supporting the Department's Business Mission Area. This role incorporates oversight of the DoD
Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA) – the corporate level systems, processes, and data standards that are common across the DoD, in addition to the business architectures of the services and defense agencies.
As chief architect, Wisnosky ensured that the federated architectures of the BMA fully support the department's vision, mission, strategy and priorities for business transformation, and that each tier of the overall architecture is clearly defined with appropriate focused accountability aligned to the management structure of the DoD. He verifies that the BEA and component architectures remain consistent and compliant with the
federal enterprise architecture (FEA), and will support and collaborate with the DoD components to unify architecture planning, development, and maintenance through a federated approach. Wisnosky also serves as an advisor on the development of requirements and extension of DoD net-centric enterprise services in collaboration with the office of the DoD chief information officer. He was the first to introduce service-oriented architecture (SOA) and to the business mission area (BMA) and has established and led an enterprise approach to delivering BI based upon semantic technologies.
Books
Wisnosky has published books and papers in the fields of BPR, semiconductor processing, information technology, robotics and factory controls, management, SOA and semantic technology. He is the originator of the
funnel visualization of enterprise control networks.
He authored or co-authored 7 books. His book, "Overcoming Funnel Vision", published in 1996, won critical acclaim . His book, "DoDAF Wizdom", written in 2004, remains the definitive how to guide for successfully building enterprise architectures using the DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF).
Speaker
Regarded to be a technology visionary and an entrepreneur who can engineer and deliver products, he is a frequent speaker on service-oriented architecture (SOA) and semantic technologies. As a private citizen, he has testified before subcommittees of both the U.S. House and Senate on U.S. productivity issues and the quality of American work life.
Publications
Wisnosky has published over 100 papers, and Wisnosky has authored or co-authored 7 books, in the fields of management,
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
, Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), Enterprise Architecture, Knowledge Management,
computer-aided design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
/
computer-aided manufacturing
Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) also known as computer-aided modeling or computer-aided machining is the use of software to control machine tools in the manufacturing of work pieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most ...
(CAD/CAM),
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
,
computer-integrated manufacturing
Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control the entire production process. This integration allows individual processes to exchange information with each part. Manufacturing can be faster a ...
(CIM) and the Semantic Technologies/Web. Books:
* 1977.
An overview of the Air Force program for integrated computer aided manufacturing (ICAM)'. ICAM program prospectus. SME technical paper
* 1980. ''The Southfield Report on Computer Integrated Manufacturing: Productivity for the 1980s : Proceedings of a Joint DoD—industry Manufacturing Technology Workshop''. With Joseph Harrington, Manufacturing Technology Advisory Group, CAD/CAM Subcommittee, Dept. of Defense, United States.
* 1981. ''Computer Integrated Manufacturing the Air Force ICAM Approach''. Society of Manufacturing Engineers.
* 1996. ''Softlogic: Overcoming Funnel Vision: How and Why IEC 1131 Based Softlogic Frees the Enterprise to Become Agile and Profitable.'' With Michael Babb.
* 2000. ''Beyond the Supply Chain: A Step-by-Step Guide to Radically Improving Healthcare Delivery with Electronic Transactions''. With Leon E. Salomon and Anne Jones. Wizdom Systems, Inc., 2000.
* 2001. ''BPR wizdom : a practical guide to BPR project management''. With Rita C. Feeney. Wizdom Systems, 2001.
* 2004. ''Dodaf Wizdom: a Practical Guide to Planning, Managing and Executing Projects to Build Enterprise Architectures using the Department of Defense Architecture Framework''. With Joseph Vogel. Wizdom Systems, Inc., 2004. .
Articles, a selection:
* 1969.
Triangular Sawtooth Sweep for NMR with Provision for Manual Operation or Time Averaging. ''Review of Scientific Instruments.'' Volume: 40, Issue: 3 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1063/1.1683981
* 2008.
DoD Business Mission Area Service-Oriented Architecture to Support Business Transformation'. Wisnosky, D., Feldshteyn, D., Mancuso, W., Gough, A., Riutort, E., & Strassman, P. in: ''The Journal of Defense Software'' October 2008. ,
* 2009.
Principles and Patterns at the U.S. Department of Defense. Wisnosky, D. In: ''SOA Magazine'', (Issue XXV). (January 19, 2009).
* 2010. "Primitives and the Future of SOA: DoD looks to develop a common vocabulary to improve system design". Yasin, R. (February 1, 2010). ''Government Computer News'', Vol 29 (Issue 2), pp. 25–27.
* 2011. "Engineering Enterprise Architecture: Call to Action" .Wisnosky, D. (January 2011). ''Common Defense Quarterly'', (Issue 9), pp. 9–14.
References
External links
*
Radio interview: Federal TechTalk Video Presentation: FIBO In the Semantic World
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wisnosky, Dennis E.
1942 births
Living people
People from Washington, Pennsylvania
Enterprise modelling experts
University of Dayton alumni
Swanson School of Engineering alumni