The perspectives of Enterprise System Modelling
The understanding of the environment that we are evolved in is important to make informed decisions for moving forward. It helps us to understand the current context and how we may have to get in there. Knowing our environment, we can identify potential problems as well as potential opportunities for improvement. However, this understanding has to be shared by all agents in evolved in the environment.
A common understanding of the current situation avoids misinterpretations and different views that can impact reality. Therefore, all agents in the environment have to agree upon what the environment is, what are its components and the current and expected states of these components. Those agreements can be explicit, implicit or tacit.
In order to describe and represent the environment and its systems, models can be built. Models are visual constructs aiming to represent a concrete or abstract reality. Models help describe observed systems, phenomena and environments. They also support the design of future systems.
Models are abstracts representations of known reality. Adopting a systemic approach, models describe the structures and relationships between systems and also between their elements. For instance, a model can describe how market risk can impact stock returns, how components of a smartphone are put together and how business strategies deliver solutions to enterprise clients.
Models can be graphic (ex. 3D representations of buildings) or written (ex. Mathematical equations describing stock returns). Indeed, models can be used for a variety of domains (ex. Manufacturing, marketing, finance, etc.) and for different purposes (ex. Description, simulation, etc.).
In the enterprise context, Enterprise Models are representations of parts or whole Enterprise Systems. For example, such models can describe the business process, data models, service models and so on. Indeed, Enterprise Models can be useful for (a) describing the current situation of the company, (b) for identifying potential problems, (c) prescribing future states of the enterprise, and (d) simulate enterprise systems behaviours based on internal or external changes.
Indeed, a system model is a decision support tool for decision-makers such as Information Technology (IT) architects, project owner, business analysts, management among others.
In the next sections, I present different views for modelling an enterprise as well as some modelling languages.
Modelling Views
Each modelling view focuses on one aspect of the enterprise. We can define six main views (Business, Organizational, Process, Technological, Application and Data) and two main prerequisites (Semantics and Governance) for modelling. All six views should respect the modelling prerequisites.
The semantics prerequisite refers to the meaning of each concept, attribute and image used for designing a system. Indeed, semantics should be defined, agreed and shared between all stakeholders. Standards, meta-models (such as domain ontologies), dictionaries and taxonomies can be used for ensuring the semantics of models.
Governance establishes the responsibilities and authorities of the involved actors. In other words, it states who can create, modify and discards enterprise models within the company. Normally, an Enterprise Architect is nominated for overseeing the different activities and to build models in the organization.
Business View
The business view of an enterprise focuses on the strategies for achieving the enterprise objectives and fulfilling its mission and visions. In general, Business Models describe what are the main products and services provided by the company, the potential and existing clients, the communication channels, the financial models for balancing expenses and profits and so on.
A well-known approach for designing a Business Model is the Business Model Canvas (BMC), proposed by Alex Osterwalder. Besides BMC, there are many other modelling approaches that can be used for describing the business view.
Organizational View
The organizational view, focus on the representation of the organization structure. In other words, it concerns the relationships and responsibilities of the actors of the company. Actors here refers to all employees and their different roles within the enterprise.
For representing the organizational structure, one may adopt a hierarchical approach or an operational approach. The latter prioritizes the relationships relevant for the day-to-day operations of the enterprise, the points of contact and the responsibilities for the main activities. The former focus on hierarchical and managerial relationships.
Process View
The process view focuses on the representation of how the flow of activities are linked and what are the needed resources. Indeed, Process Models describe the main steps for transforming inputs into outputs such as products and services. It also identifies the events that trigger such processes as the control mechanism. Process modelling is typically performed by business analysts, who provide expertise in the modelling discipline.
One of the most used modelling languages for designing processes is the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). This approach is largely used by academics and practitioners.
Technological View
This view concerns the description of the infrastructure for supporting the most variety of systems such as information and manufacturing systems. It has the objective to represent the different system’s elements such as servers, databases, sensors and so on. It also includes the considerations from technical specifications, standards and protocols.
Application View
The application view focuses on the representation of the application components organization and relationships as well as the different services and functions that it may provide.
Applications in this context can be referred to any kind of application and service such as web applications, standalone software, or any kind of functions that are used and produced by enterprises.
For instance, Application Models had the interest to describe the application characteristics, its interfaces, the connections with the technological infrastructure, the resources needed for operating and etc.
This view is closely related to approaches such as the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which is a style of software design.
Data View
The data view focuses on how data is organised. Data Models are used to establish how data are organised within a database, how concepts are linked to one another and etc. Data Models also establishes the data format according to the used technologies and standards.
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is one of the languages that are largely used for designing data structures and relationships.
Modelling Languages
A modelling language is an artificial language that can be used to express information, knowledge or systems in a structure defined by a coherent set of rules. The rules are used for the interpretation of the meaning of the components in the structure. Below are some of the more well-known languages for business modelling.
Unified Modelling Language — UML
The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is currently one of the most important standard languages for the specification, visualization, construction and documentation of software system artefacts. The Object Management Group (OMG) manages language development. This language can be used to cover the technological, application and data perspectives of a company.
System Modelling Language — SysML
SysML is used for modelling complex systems. It is an extension of the UML family of standards to provide standard representations with well-defined semantics that can support the exchange of models and data. SysML was developed as a joint initiative of the Object Management Group (OMG) with the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). This language can be used to cover the technological, application and data perspectives of a company.
Business Process Management Notation — BPMN
The main objective of BPMN is to provide a notation easily understood by all professional users, from the business analysts who create the initial drafts of the processes to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will execute these processes, and finally, to the people of business that will manage and monitor these processes. This language can be used to cover business and process perspectives.
ArchiMate
The ArchiMate is a language to express the architecture of companies11. The concepts of the ArchiMate language cover the Business, Application, Technology layers of a company and provide two extended layers which represent motivation and implementation. This language can be used to cover all perspectives.
Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations — DEMO
The Design and Engineering Method for Organizations (DEMO) is a business modelling methodology for modelling transactions and analyzing and representing business processes. It has been developed since the 1980s by Jan Dietz and others. This language can be used to cover business and process perspectives.
Conclusion
In this article, I have discussed the relevance of enterprise modelling perspectives to describe and analyze the current states of society. Indeed, modelling provides a more rigorous method of capturing, designing, analyzing, verifying and validating information, relevant for inference of the operational context. It thus allows a complete understanding between the development teams and the other stakeholders. Likewise, it also promotes the use of traceability features that facilitate the properties in which business systems should be able to interact with other internal or external systems.
