Abstract
In computer science, models are made explicit to provide formality and a precise understanding of small, contingent universes (e.g., an organization), as constructed from stakeholder requirements. Conceptual modeling is a fundamental discipline in this context whose main concerns are identifying, analyzing and describing the critical concepts of a universe of discourse. In the information systems field, one of the reasons why projects fail is an inability to capture requirements in a way that can be technically used to configure a system. This problem of requirements specification is considered to have deficiencies in theory. We apply a recently developed model called the Thinging Machine (TM) model which uniformly integrates static and dynamic modeling features to this problem of requirements specification. The object-Oriented (OO) approach to modeling, as applied in Unified Modeling Language, is by far the most applied and accepted standard in software engineering; nevertheless, new notions in the field may enhance and facilitate a supplementary understanding of the OO model itself. We aim to contribute to the field of conceptual modeling by introducing the TM model s philosophical foundation of requirements analysis. The TM model has only five generic processes of things (e.g., objects), in which genericity indicates generality, as in the generic Aristotelian concepts based on abstraction. We show the TM model s viability by applying it to a real business system.
Highlights
Modeling is used to understand and shape the world and is a foundational technique, in that “There is hardly a domain of inquiry without models” (Frigg and Nguyen, 2017), e.g., the solar system as well as atoms, cells and electricity
Modeling has been employed for ages in virtually all disciplines, the form of models has been fairly recently made explicit in computer science, where it is utilized to “provide formality and a precise understanding of what is a well-formed model to the communication between humans and machines” (Hölldobler et al, 2017)
The case involved in this paper is a tendering system that describes the actual process of how a vendor can register itself in the system in order to apply its purchase orders (POs), which can be described as follows: (1) A vendor acquires an account (2) The account must be activated (3) A registration fee is paid (4) The vendor account is activated (5) The vendor fills out the purchase order application
Summary
Modeling is used to understand and shape the world and is a foundational technique, in that “There is hardly a domain of inquiry without models” (Frigg and Nguyen, 2017), e.g., the solar system as well as atoms, cells and electricity. Our main concern is with deficiencies in requirement analysis theory within software engineering This eventually leads us to our main goal of proposing a new conceptual modeling technique with a single construct, called thimac (thing/machine), which unifies the static and dynamic features of things (e.g., objects). Class diagrams provide an overview of systems and are utilized for purposes such as understanding requirements and describing the target system’s design in detail It is the best-known view of the OO approach and often the only diagram that is constructed (Grässle et al, 2005). It incorporates a complete ontological unity between things (e.g., objects) and processes (called machines) The detail of this unity is defined through the intrinsic structure, in terms of a network of what are called thimacs (thing/machine), which provide an alternative conceptualization to classes and subclasses. More information about the TM model can be found in Al-Fedaghi (2019a; 2019b; 2019c)
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