Enterprise Modelling Language Research Articles

Using Fractal Enterprise Modeling in Strategic Analysis with Focus on Intangibles: Empirical Study in Product Innovation

This article presents a new meta-modeling approach for intangible resources. The method combines Enterprise Modeling (EM) and the resource value innovation model from the knowledge management (KM) field. In particular, fractal enterprise modeling (FEM) language has been used for constructing the intangible resources’ level of development. The practical application of the proposed method deploys a real case example in the strategic analysis of the organizational change within the product innovation activities. The results imply that the proposed method has a good potential to incorporate the intangibles into EM. First, it has been possible to represent the intangible resources’ level of development. Second, the FEM models produced in the study have been useful in the analysis of how tacit knowledge is acquired and appropriated within the organization’s strategic capability building. The study resulted in producing modeling and analyzing patterns that can be reused in similar situations. The research followed the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology.

Enterprise Modeling According to Enterprise Architects

In the context of enterprise modeling, this paper is to explain business modeling. The enterprise modeling has been developed to support different stakeholders in their decision-making processes. Managers, auditors, enterprise architects, and business developers have particular expectations concerning the enterprise and they need conceptual modeling. Beyond that, business units, i.e., customers, producers, cooperators, and suppliers are interested in the conceptual modeling and enterprise models. In this paper, author argues that conceptual modeling is necessary for enterprise management, and particularly for internal auditing. Author uses the enterprise architecture approach, presents enterprise architecture frameworks; discusses enterprise modeling methods, languages, and tools to reveal the opportunity to apply conceptual modeling for enterprise management. This paper aims to present the application of Assurance Map, tasks and goal modeling in an integrated conceptual model.

Automatic generation of UML profile graphical editors for Papyrus

UML profiles offer an intuitive way for developers to build domain-specific modelling languages by reusing and extending UML concepts. Eclipse Papyrus is a powerful open-source UML modelling tool which supports UML profiling. However, with power comes complexity, implementing non-trivial UML profiles and their supporting editors in Papyrus typically requires the developers to handcraft and maintain a number of interconnected models through a loosely guided, labour-intensive and error-prone process. We demonstrate how metamodel annotations and model transformation techniques can help manage the complexity of Papyrus in the creation of UML profiles and their supporting editors. We present Jorvik, an open-source tool that implements the proposed approach. We illustrate its functionality with examples, and we evaluate our approach by comparing it against manual UML profile specification and editor implementation using a non-trivial enterprise modelling language (Archimate) as a case study. We also perform a user study in which developers are asked to produce identical editors using both Papyrus and Jorvik demonstrating the substantial productivity and maintainability benefits that Jorvik delivers.

A Network-Based Virtual Reality Simulation Training Approach for Orthopedic Surgery

The focus of this article is on the adoption of immersive and haptic simulators for training of medical residents in a surgical process called Less Invasive Stabilization System (LISS) plating surgery . LISS surgery is an orthopedic surgical procedure to treat fractures of the femur bone. Development of such simulators is a complex task which involves multiple systems, technologies, and human experts. Emerging Next Generation Internet technologies were used to develop the standalone on-line haptic-based simulator accessible to the students 24/7. A standalone immersive surgical simulator was also developed using HTC Vive. Expert surgeons played an important role in developing the simulator system; use cases of the target surgical processes were built using a modeling language called the engineering Enterprise Modeling Language (eEML) . A detailed study presenting the comparison between the haptic-based simulator and the immersive simulator has been also presented. The outcomes of this study underscore the potential of using such simulators in surgical training.

Tailoring IT-Architectures – Increasing Transparency for Companies in the Mechanical Engineering Industry

With the introduction of the Internet of Things and cyber physical systems, companies have to deal with an increasing amount of data and information systems to process the data. In this context, the dependencies and relationships between different information systems should be transparent to support business processes. Typical Enterprise Architecture Management methods deal with dependencies between processes, data, applications, and infrastructure to increase transparency. This paper follows the design science paradigm to deliver an approach for tailoring IT-Architectures for manufacturing companies by analyzing and modelling the company-specific information demand using established Enterprise Architecture Management approaches and modelling languages.

Representation and analysis of enterprise models with semantic techniques: an application to ArchiMate, e3value and business model canvas

Enterprise models assist the governance and transformation of organizations through the specification, communication and analysis of strategy, goals, processes, information, along with the underlying application and technological infrastructure. Such models cross-cut different concerns and are often conceptualized using domain-specific modelling languages. This paper explores the application of graph-based semantic techniques to specify, integrate and analyse multiple, heterogeneous enterprise models. In particular, the proposal described in this paper (1) specifies enterprise models as ontological schemas, (2) uses transformation mapping functions to integrate the ontological schemas and (3) analyses the integrated schemas with graph querying and logical inference. The proposal is evaluated through a scenario that integrates three distinct enterprise modelling languages: the business model canvas, e3value, and the business layer of the ArchiMate language. The results show, on the one hand, that the graph-based approach is able to handle the specification, integration and analysis of enterprise models represented with different modelling languages and, on the other, that the integration challenge resides in defining appropriate mapping functions between the schemas.

An information centric framework for creating virtual environments to support micro surgery

In this paper we discuss the creation of an information centric framework to develop a virtual reality environment for micro surgery. An information model of micro surgery was built through interactions with an expert micro surgeon using the engineering Enterprise Modeling Language (eEML). The overall approach and architecture of the micro surgical environment is discussed. An enterprise level surgical manager, surgical planner and other components work together to enable the functioning of the virtual environment for micro surgery. Such virtual environments are essential to educating / training young budding surgeons..

An Internet of Things (IoT)-based collaborative framework for advanced manufacturing

This paper outlines an Internet of Things (IoT)-based collaborative framework which provides a foundation for cyber physical interactions and collaborations for advanced manufacturing domains. A general framework for collaborative manufacturing is proposed followed by a discussion of such an IoT-based framework for the domain of micro devices assembly. The design of this collaborative framework is discussed in the context of cloud computing as well as the emerging Next Internet which is the focus of recent initiatives in the USA, EU, and other countries. The data/information exchange between the various software and physical components is modeled using the engineering Enterprise Modeling Language (eEML), which provides a structured foundation for designing and developing this IoT-based collaborative framework. The key cyber physical components and modules are described followed by a discussion of the implementation of this framework.

The Development and Experimental Evaluation of a Focused Business Model Representation

Business models (BM) are the central concept to understand the business logic of an organization. Enterprise modeling contributes to the conceptualization of BMs by providing explicit representations. A proper BM representation helps to increase the understanding and communication about the underlying knowledge for the stakeholders within a company. However, the existing enterprise modeling languages have a different and partial focus on the BM concept due to their various backgrounds. This prevents the large-scale adoption of these representations in practice. Therefore a focused BM viewpoint is developed, which explicitly facilitates the understanding about the underlying BM components. To this end, existing diagrams of the value delivery modeling language were adapted to prescriptions of the physics of notations, which is a normative theory for cognitive effectiveness of diagrammatic representations. The effect on the understanding was evaluated by an experiment with 93 master students. The results confirm the research hypothesis that the new BM viewpoint increases the understanding of the modeled BM components.

Enterprise Modeling in the context of Enterprise Engineering: State of the art and outlook

Enterprise Modeling is a central activity in Enterprise Engineering and can facilitate Production Management activities. This state-of-the-art paper first recalls definitions and fundamental principles of enterprise modelling, which goes far beyond process modeling. The CIMOSA modeling framework, which is based on an event-driven process-based modeling language suitable for enterprise system analysis and model enactment, is used as a reference conceptual framework because of its generality. Next, the focus is on new features of enterprise modeling languages including risk, value, competency modeling and service orientation. Extensions for modeling collaborative aspects of networked organizations are suggested as research outlook. Major approaches used in enterprise modeling are recalled before concluding.

Service configuration in SOA-based enterprise representation using role knowledge

Abstract This work investigates the use of enterprise models for service configuration with a focus on knowledge related to organizational roles. Starting from an industrial case, it presents an approach to extract a role’s information demand from an enterprise model and to use this as initial configuration for agent-based services. In addition to the meta-model included in the enterprise modeling language, the use of a common ontology is proposed which captures both, the perspective of information demand and services. The architecture of the agentbased services is following the idea to characterize all actors by their roles and to represent them by sets of services. This approach facilitates self-organization in the service level. The main contributions of the paper are (1) to show that a role’s information demand is relevant for service configuration, (2) to present a way of extracting information demand from enterprise models, and (3) to extend an approach for SOA-based enterprise representation with information demand.

System of systems modelling and simulation - an outlook and open issues

System of systems (SoS) engineering is an emerging sub-discipline, within which modelling and simulation is a key area. The failure of many SoS endeavours can be attributed to the inappropriate application of systems engineering processes, including modelling approaches. Selection of suitable modelling approaches is critical to ensuring representative models are created, ensuring reliable SoS analysis and prediction of emergent behaviour is possible. Essential to SoS modelling is the dynamic element, enabling the generation of emergent behaviour, appropriate approaches including; discrete event system specification, Petri nets, agent-based modelling and system dynamics. Bayesian belief networks, Markov models and game theory provide a static probabilistic approach, suitable for strategic, decision and risk models. Enterprise architecture frameworks and modelling languages are typically used for static modelling of SoS. A combination of static and dynamic approaches should be utilised, providing a range of perspectives, giving an insight into the complexity inherent in all SoS.

An ontology for enterprise and information systems modelling

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) aims to support precise semantic definition of a wide variety of enterprise- and IS-modelling languages. In the longer run, it is also intended as a...

An ontology for enterprise and information systems modelling

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) aims to support precise semantic definition of a wide variety of enterprise- and IS-modelling languages. In the longer run, it is also intended as a hub for integrated use of enterprise and information system (IS) models expressed in different languages. To achieve this, UEML provides a common ontology that interrelates the semantics of many existing modelling languages. This paper presents the motivation and background for the UEML work. It then presents the structure and contents of UEML's evolving common ontology, the Unified Enterprise Modelling Ontology (UEMO), which has been established through analyses of 130 modelling constructs from a selection of 10 enterprise- and IS-modelling languages. It goes on to discuss the current state of UEMO and its further evolution. Finally, conclusions and paths for further work are offered.

New perspectives in ontological analysis: Guidelines and rules for incorporating modelling languages into UEML

Ontological analysis of modelling languages has been mainly used for evaluating quality of modelling language w.r.t. one specific upper ontology. Generally speaking this evaluation has been done by identifying the coverage of the modelling language constructs w.r.t. the ontology and vice-versa. However, a quite limited support has been developed for performing the ontological analysis task. Specifically, various ontologies used for ontological analysis are not associated to a machine readable format; the coverage of modelling language constructs is mostly provided by informal tables mapping one construct on to one ontological concept; the way in which this coverage task is undertaken is poorly specified (resulting in distinct results for distinct experts involved), and finally, preventing any ontology enrichment for dealing with some specialised language constructs. This limited support also prevents application of ontological analysis outcomes to problems and domains dealing with interoperability, integration and integrated usage of enterprise and IS models, which is today one of the key aspects for making interoperable, maintainable and evolvable inter and intra enterprise software systems. The paper provides an overview of the Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) approach, which introduces advanced support to ontological analysis of modelling languages. The paper is specifically focused on the task of ontological analysis of modelling languages (named incorporation of modelling languages) by introducing and explaining several guidelines and rules for driving the task: therefore, not all the aspects of the UEML approach will be discussed through the paper. The guidelines and rules are illustrated by incorporation of three selected modelling constructs from IDEF3, a well known language for specifying enterprise processes.

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language—Overview and further work

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) aims at supporting integrated use of enterprise and IS models expressed using different languages. To achieve this aim, UEML offers a hub through which modelling languages can be connected, thereby paving the way for also connecting the models expressed in those languages. This paper motivates and presents the most central parts of the UEML approach: a structured path to describing enterprise and IS modelling constructs; a common ontology to interrelate construct descriptions at the semantic level; a correspondence analysis approach to estimate semantic construct similarity; a quality framework to aid selection of languages; a meta-meta model to integrate the different parts of the approach; and a set of tools to aid its use and evolution. The paper also discusses the benefits of UEML and points to paths for further work.

PLM paradigm: How to lead BPR within the Product Development field

The design and implementation of a PLM solution in a cross-company environment is a complex and labour intensive operation, which is often coupled with a Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) project to better deploy technologies as well as methodologies and to target the system implementation on the real company needs. Enterprise Modelling (EM) languages are typically used to collect and share process knowledge among the BPR participants. Plenty of techniques are actually available at this scope and it is not always easy to understand how to select and use them in the different steps of re-engineering. The main purpose of this paper is to perform a qualitative analysis of three well known EM languages (IDEF, UML and ARIS) and to propose a new methodology, based on their integrated use, supporting BPR efforts in the Product Development domain.

Interoperability in enterprise modelling: Translation, elementary constructs, meta-modelling and UEML development

Nowadays, one of the important objectives of research in the enterprise modelling domain is the development of a unified language, often called UEML (Unified Enterprise Modelling Language). UEML is expected to be a pivot language in order to manage the large amount of enterprise modelling languages and then to increase the interoperability in the domain of enterprise modelling. This paper is focused on one of the more illuminating aspects of UEML: the comparison of the constructs of the enterprise modelling language. Thus, the objective of this paper is to propose an approach allowing to provide some help concerning the identification of whose constructs are needed in UEML. This approach is based on the language meta-modelling, by using Unified Modelling Language (UML) language, and on the set theory. It is applied on a simple example of model translation between the SADT activity and the GRAI activity of GRAI nets.

Semantic enrichment of enterprise modelling supported by ontologies

Enterprise modelling and ontology are two separated fields of research. On the one hand, there exists various enterprise modelling languages developed since twenty years, that are mostly considered on a syntactic basis. On the other hand, ontologies have been elaborated, which aim to formally define concepts within a specific domain in order to avoid ambiguities of understanding. Some problems of application and use of enterprise modelling languages raised come from the lack of semantic. So, semantic enrichment of these languages is becoming an important topic in enterprise integration and interoperability areas and ontology can be a solution to bring semantics.

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language – Overview and Further Work

The Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) aims to support integrated use of enterprise and IS models expressed in a variety of languages. To achieve this aim, UEML provides a hub through which different languages can be connected, thereby paving the way for connecting the models expressed in those languages. UEML offers a structured approach to describing enterprise and IS modelling constructs, a common ontology to interrelate construct descriptions at the semantic level, a correspondence analysis approach to estimate semantic construct similarity, a quality framework to aid selection of languages, a meta-meta model to organise the UEML and a set of tools to aid its use and evolution. This paper presents an overview of UEML and points to paths for further work.