Modeling equipment hierarchy and costs for ICT solutions

Abstract

AbstractIn the early 2000s, a large number of companies thrived mainly due to the fast‐paced evolution of network and Internet technologies. A similar trend is now emerging with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), using which almost every thing can be part of the Internet. Both groups of companies have important ICT networks as their core assets. In order to validate the feasibility of the business models of such companies, the relevant costs and revenues should be modeled. This publication focuses on the relevant costs, which can be divided into two categories: process costs and equipment costs, the latter being the focus here.For equipment costs, no formal standard exists. As a result, most studies make use of use case‐specific ad hoc models (typically, a combination of visualization and spreadsheet modeling), which tend to be error‐prone as well as hard to understand and reuse. To solve these issues, we developed the Equipment Coupling Modeling Notation (ECMN), which allows for both visualization and calculation while focusing on simplicity, flexibility, and reusability. ECMN is a flowchart‐like notation based on a small number of building blocks, which allows for hierarchical modeling by means of nesting models (using submodels).In this study, ECMN was applied to an IoT use case to show its strengths, based on which a comparison was made with various ad hoc models using a set of requirements.