Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.Cornelius T. Leondes, Richard Henry Frymuth Jackson (1992). Manufacturing and Automation Systems: Techniques and Technologies. Academic Press, 1992. , p.97
It deals with the process of understanding an organization and improving its performance through creation and analysis of enterprise models. This includes the modelling of the relevant business domain (usually relatively stable), business processes (usually more volatile), and uses of information technology within the business domain and its processes.
Overview Enterprise modelling is the process of building models of whole or part of an enterprise with process models, data models, resource models and/or new ontologies etc. It is based on knowledge about the enterprise, previous models and/or reference models as well as domain ontologies using model representation languages.F.B. Vernadat (1997). Enterprise Modelling Languages ICEIMT'97 Enterprise Integration - International Consensus. EI-IC ESPRIT Project 21.859. An enterprise in general is a unit of economic organization or activity. These activities are required to develop and deliver products and/or services to a customer. An enterprise includes a number of functions and operations such as purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, finance, engineering, and research and development. The enterprise of interest are those corporate functions and operations necessary to manufacture current and potential future variants of a product.James K. Ostie (1996). "An Introduction to Enterprise Modeling and Simulation"
The term "enterprise model" is used in industry to represent differing enterprise representations, with no real standardized definition.E. Aranow (1991). "Modeling Exercises Shape Up Enterprises". In: Software Magazine Vol.11, p. 36-43 Due to the complexity of enterprise organizations, a vast number of differing enterprise modelling approaches have been pursued across industry and academia.C. J. Pétrie Jr. (1992). "Introduction", In: Enterprise Integration Modeling - Proceedings of the First International Conference MIT Press, p. 563. Enterprise modelling constructs can focus upon manufacturing operations and/or business operations; however, a common thread in enterprise modelling is an inclusion of assessment of information technology. For example, the use of networked computers to trigger and receive replacement orders along a material supply chain is an example of how information technology is used to coordinate manufacturing operations within an enterprise.
The basic idea of enterprise modelling according to Ulrich Frank"Enterprise modeling" by Ulrich Frank (2009) at wi-inf.uni-due.de. Retrieved May 30, 2009. is "to offer different views on an enterprise, thereby providing a medium to foster dialogues between various stakeholders - both in academia and in practice. For this purpose they include abstractions suitable for strategic planning, organisational (re-) design and software engineering. The views should complement each other and thereby foster a better understanding of complex systems by systematic abstractions. The views should be generic in the sense that they can be applied to any enterprise. At the same time they should offer abstractions that help with designing information systems which are well integrated with a company's long term strategy and its organisation. Hence, enterprise models can be regarded as the conceptual infrastructure that support a high level of integration."
History Enterprise modelling has its roots in systems modelling and especially information systems modelling. One of the earliest pioneering works in modelling information systems was done by Young and Kent (1958),Young, J. W., and Kent, H. K. (1958). "Abstract Formulation of Data Processing Problems". In: Journal of Industrial Engineering. Nov-Dec 1958. 9(6), pp. 471-479Janis A. Bubenko jr (2007) "From Information Algebra to Enterprise Modelling and Ontologies - a Historical Perspective on Modelling for Information Systems". In: Conceptual Modelling in Information Systems Engineering. John Krogstie et al. eds. pp 1-18 who argued for "a precise and abstract way of specifying the informational and time characteristics of a data processing problem". They wanted to create "a notation that should enable the analyst to organize the problem around any piece of hardware". Their work was a first effort to create an abstract specification and invariant basis for designing different alternative implementations using different hardware components. A next step in IS modelling was taken by CODASYL, an IT industry consortium formed in 1959, who essentially aimed at the same thing as Young and Kent: the development of "a proper structure for machine independent problem definition language, at the system level of data processing". This led to the development of a specific IS information algebra.
The first methods dealing with enterprise modelling emerged in the 1970s. They were the entity-relationship approach of Peter Chen (1976) and SADT of Douglas T. Ross (1977), the one concentrate on the information view and the other on the function view of business entities. These first methods have been followed end 1970s by numerous methods for software engineering, such as SSADM, Structured Design, Structured Analysis and others. Specific methods for enterprise modelling in the context of Computer Integrated Manufacturing appeared in the early 1980s. They include the IDEF family of methods (ICAM, 1981) and the GRAI method by Guy Doumeingts in 1984Doumeingts, Guy (1984) La Méthode GRAI. PhD. Thesis, University of Bordeaux I, Bordeaux, France. (In French). followed by GRAI/GIM by Doumeingts and others in 1992.Doumeingts, G., Vallespir, B., Zanettin, M. and Chen, D. (1992) GIM, GRAI Integrated Methodology - A methodology for Designing CIM systems, Version 1.0. Unnumbered Report, LAP/GRAI, University of Bordeaux I, France
These second generation of methods were activity-based methods which have been surpassed on the one hand by process-centred modelling methods developed in the 1990s such as Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS), CIMOSA and Integrated Enterprise Modeling (IEM). And on the other hand by object-oriented methods, such as Object-oriented analysis (OOA) and Object-modelling technique (OMT).
Enterprise modelling basics Enterprise model An enterprise model is a representation of the structure, activities, processes, information, resources, people, behavior, goals, and constraints of a business, government, or other enterprises.Mark S. Fox and Michael Gruninger (1998) "Enterprise Modeling". American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Thomas Naylor (1970) defined a (simulation) model as "an attempt to describe the interrelationships among a corporation's financial, marketing, and production activities in terms of a set of mathematical and logical relationships which are programmed into the computer."Naylor, T. (1970) Corporate simulation models and the economic theory of the firm, in Schrieber, A. (editor) "Corporate simulation models", University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1970, pp 1-35. These interrelationships should according to Gershefski (1971) represent in detail all aspects of the firm including "the physical operations of the company, the accounting and financial practices followed, and the response to investment in key areas"Gershefski, G. (1971) "What's happening in the world of corporate models?", Interfaces, Vol 1, No 4. p.44 Programming the modelled relationships into the computer is not always necessary: enterprise models, under different names, have existed for centuries and were described, for example, by Adam Smith, Walter Bagehot, and many others.
According to Fox and Gruninger (1998) from "a design perspective, an enterprise model should provide the language used to explicitly define an enterprise... From an operations perspective, the enterprise model must be able to represent what is planned, what might happen, and what has happened. It must supply the information and knowledge necessary to support the operations of the enterprise, whether they be performed by hand or machine."
In a two-volume set entitled The Managerial Cybernetics of Organization Stafford Beer introduced a model of the enterprise, the Viable System Model (VSM). Volume 2, The Heart of Enterprise,Beer, Stafford. (1979) The Heart of Enterprise, Wiley. analyzed the VSM as a recursive organization of five systems: System One (S1) through System Five (S5). Beer's model differs from others in that the VSM is recursive, not hierarchical: "In a recursive organizational structure, any viable system contains, and is contained in, a viable system."
Function modelling
Function modelling in systems engineering is a structured representation of the functions, activities or processes within the modelled system or subject area.FIPS Publication 183 released of IDEFØ December 1993 by the Computer Systems Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
A function model, also called an activity model or process model, is a graphical representation of an enterprise's function within a defined scope. The purposes of the function model are: to describe the functions and processes, assist with discovery of information needs, help identify opportunities, and establish a basis for determining product and service costs.Reader's Guide to IDEF0 Function Models. Accessed 27 Nov 2008. A function model is created with a functional modelling perspective. A functional perspectives is one or more perspectives possible in process modelling. Other perspectives possible are for example behavioural, organisational or informational.Process perspectives. In: Metamodeling and method engineering, Minna Koskinen, 2000.
A functional modelling perspective concentrates on describing the dynamic process. The main concept in this modelling perspective is the process, this could be a function, transformation, activity, action, task etc. A well-known example of a modelling language employing this perspective is data flow diagrams. The perspective uses four symbols to describe a process, these being: Process: Illustrates transformation from input to output. Store: Data-collection or some sort of material. Flow: Movement of data or material in the process. External Entity: External to the modelled system, but interacts with it. Now, with these symbols, a process can be represented as a network of these symbols. This decomposed process is a DFD, data flow diagram. In Dynamic Enterprise Modeling, for example, a division is made in the Control model, Function Model, Process model and Organizational model.
Data modelling
Data modelling is the process of creating a data model by applying formal data model descriptions using data modelling techniques. Data modelling is a technique for defining business requirements for a database. It is sometimes called database modelling because a data model is eventually implemented in a database.Whitten, Jeffrey L.; Lonnie D. Bentley, Kevin C. Dittman. (2004). Systems Analysis and Design Methods. 6th edition. .
The figure illustrates the way data models are developed and used today. A conceptual data model is developed based on the data requirements for the application that is being developed, perhaps in the context of an activity model. The data model will normally consist of entity types, attributes, relationships, integrity rules, and the definitions of those objects. This is then used as the start point for interface or database design.Matthew West and Julian Fowler (1999). Developing High Quality Data Models . The European Process Industries STEP Technical Liaison Executive (EPISTLE).
Business process modelling