Integration of business modelling methods for enterprise information system analysis and user requirements gathering

Abstract

Business process modelling is an essential part of developing an enterprise information system. There are many modelling methods with software support currently available on the market. Each individual method has its own advantages and disadvantages but always has the limitation of only representing a certain view of enterprise. To describe a system clearly from different perspectives and to provide a complete understanding of the business process both to the developer and to the end-user, it is necessary to adopt more than one kind of modelling technique to establish a set of graphical models describing a system from different views. The modelling approach described in this paper is composed of three widely used modelling methods: IDEF0 to establish functional models, IDEF3 to capture process descriptions, and DFD to describe information/data flow among the activities. It is a staged approach in which different modelling method is used at different levels of granularity and details of information required. After a careful evaluation and comparison (including respective advantages and disadvantages) of the three adopted modelling methods, a guideline is proposed for using a composite of these three modelling methods to establish a set of business process models from different perspectives. The aim is to combine the advantages of each modelling method and maximise the effect of modelling work. Finally, a case study is presented in order to illustrate the effectiveness of such a modelling framework.