Presentation and exchange of business models with CIMOSA-XML

Abstract

In the modern competitive business world there is a frequent need for enterprises to modify their structure of business processes to become more effective in the market place. The solution to this management demand is an improved business integration which is only successful when it is supported by effective IT systems. The Esprit project PRIMA aims to create a competitive advantage for European companies in the process sector by providing a route to `smarter' IT investments that are effective across the whole enterprise. A process repository which will store business process models in suitable formats would provide users with appropriate views of the models, focusing only on their information needs. However, the existence of many incompatible modelling methodologies and tools makes it impossible to unify the modelling approach. Therefore it would be desirable to have a high level common modelling language. The PRIMA project has identified CIMOSA as the basis for common semantics of the business model language and the XML format, as a suitable format for the transfer of the model structure and content. The PRIMA working group, in an effort to elaborate these concepts, has developed the Document Type Definition concept (DTD) of the CIMOSA-XML meta-model, which can be used to build the partial enterprise models related to the Business Functional Requirements (BFR) of the PRIMA Process Methodology.