Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business,

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

body, or other large organization. It deals with the process of understanding an organization and improving its performance through creation and analysis of enterprise models. This includes the modelling of the relevant business domain (usually relatively stable),

business process A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...

es (usually more volatile), and uses of

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ...

within the business domain and its processes.

Overview

Enterprise modelling is the process of building models of whole or part of an

enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterprise ...

with process models,

data model A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be c ...

resource model Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...

s and/or new ontologies etc. It is based on knowledge about the enterprise, previous models and/or reference models as well as domain ontologies using model representation languages. F.B. Vernadat (1997)
Enterprise Modelling Languages ICEIMT'97 Enterprise Integration - International Consensus
EI-IC ESPRIT Project 21.859. An enterprise in general is a unit of economic organization or activity. These activities are required to develop and deliver products and/or services to a customer. An enterprise includes a number of functions and operations such as purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, finance, engineering, and research and development. The enterprise of interest are those corporate functions and operations necessary to manufacture current and potential future variants of a product.James K. Ostie (1996)
"An Introduction to Enterprise Modeling and Simulation"
/ref> The term "enterprise model" is used in industry to represent differing enterprise representations, with no real standardized definition. Due to the complexity of enterprise organizations, a vast number of differing enterprise modelling approaches have been pursued across industry and

academia An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

. Enterprise modelling constructs can focus upon manufacturing operations and/or business operations; however, a common thread in enterprise modelling is an inclusion of assessment of

. For example, the use of networked computers to trigger and receive replacement orders along a material supply chain is an example of how information technology is used to coordinate manufacturing operations within an enterprise. The basic idea of enterprise modelling according to Ulrich Frank"Enterprise modeling"
by Ulrich Frank (2009) at wi-inf.uni-due.de. Retrieved May 30, 2009. is "to offer different views on an enterprise, thereby providing a medium to foster dialogues between various stakeholders - both in academia and in practice. For this purpose they include abstractions suitable for

strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the s ...

, organisational (re-) design and

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ' ...

. The views should complement each other and thereby foster a better understanding of

complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communicatio ...

s by systematic abstractions. The views should be generic in the sense that they can be applied to any enterprise. At the same time they should offer abstractions that help with designing

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

which are well integrated with a company's long term strategy and its organisation. Hence, enterprise models can be regarded as the conceptual infrastructure that support a high level of integration."

History

Enterprise modelling has its roots in

systems modelling Systems modeling or system modeling is the interdisciplinary study of the use of models to conceptualize and construct systems in business and IT development. Janis A. Bubenko jr (2007) "From Information Algebra to Enterprise Modelling and Ontologies - a Historical Perspective on Modelling for Information Systems". In: ''Conceptual Modelling in Information Systems Engineering''. John Krogstie et al. eds. pp 1-18 who argued for "a precise and abstract way of specifying the informational and time characteristics of a

data processing Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of '' information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by ...

problem". They wanted to create "a notation that should enable the analyst to organize the problem around any piece of hardware". Their work was a first effort to create an abstract specification and invariant basis for designing different alternative implementations using different hardware components. A next step in IS modelling was taken by

CODASYL CODASYL, the Conference/Committee on Data Systems Languages, was a consortium formed in 1959 to guide the development of a standard programming language that could be used on many computers. This effort led to the development of the programming ...

, an IT industry consortium formed in 1959, who essentially aimed at the same thing as Young and Kent: the development of "a proper structure for machine independent problem definition language, at the system level of data processing". This led to the development of a specific IS information algebra. The first methods dealing with enterprise modelling emerged in the 1970s. They were the entity-relationship approach of Peter Chen (1976) and SADT of Douglas T. Ross (1977), the one concentrate on the

information view Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...

and the other on the

function view Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-orien ...

of business entities. These first methods have been followed end 1970s by numerous methods for

, such as SSADM, Structured Design,

Structured Analysis In software engineering, structured analysis (SA) and structured design (SD) are methods for analyzing business requirements and developing specifications for converting practices into computer programs, hardware configurations, and related manual ...

and others. Specific methods for enterprise modelling in the context of Computer Integrated Manufacturing appeared in the early 1980s. They include the IDEF family of methods (ICAM, 1981) and the GRAI method by Guy Doumeingts in 1984 followed by GRAI/GIM by Doumeingts and others in 1992. These second generation of methods were activity-based methods which have been surpassed on the one hand by process-centred modelling methods developed in the 1990s such as

Architecture of Integrated Information Systems The ARIS concept (Architecture of Integrated Information Systems) by August-Wilhelm Scheer aims to ensure that an enterprise information system can completely meet its requirements. This framework is based on a division of the model into descri ...

(ARIS), CIMOSA and Integrated Enterprise Modeling (IEM). And on the other hand by object-oriented methods, such as Object-oriented analysis (OOA) and Object-modelling technique (OMT).

Enterprise modelling basics

Enterprise model

An enterprise model is a representation of the structure, activities, processes, information, resources, people, behavior, goals, and constraints of a business, government, or other enterprises. Mark S. Fox and

Michael Gruninger Michael Gruninger is a Canadian computer scientist and Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, known for his work on Ontologies in information science. particularly with the Process Specification Language, and in enterp ...

(1998)
Enterprise Modeling
. American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Thomas Naylor (1970) defined a (simulation) model as "an attempt to describe the interrelationships among a corporation's financial, marketing, and production activities in terms of a set of mathematical and logical relationships which are programmed into the computer." These interrelationships should according to Gershefski (1971) represent in detail all aspects of the firm including "the physical operations of the company, the accounting and financial practices followed, and the response to investment in key areas" Programming the modelled relationships into the computer is not always necessary: enterprise models, under different names, have existed for centuries and were described, for example, by Adam Smith, Walter Bagehot, and many others. According to Fox and Gruninger (1998) from "a design perspective, an enterprise model should provide the language used to explicitly define an enterprise... From an operations perspective, the enterprise model must be able to represent what is planned, what might happen, and what has happened. It must supply the information and knowledge necessary to support the operations of the enterprise, whether they be performed by hand or machine." In a two-volume set entitled ''The Managerial Cybernetics of Organization'' Stafford Beer introduced a model of the enterprise, the Viable System Model (VSM). Volume 2, ''The Heart of Enterprise,''Beer, Stafford. (1979) ''The Heart of Enterprise,'' Wiley. analyzed the VSM as a recursive organization of five systems: System One (S1) through System Five (S5). Beer's model differs from others in that the VSM is recursive, not hierarchical: "In a recursive organizational structure, any viable system contains, and is contained in, a viable system."

Function modelling

Function model In systems engineering, software engineering, and computer science, a function model or functional model is a structured representation of the functions ( activities, actions, processes, operations) within the modeled system or subject area.

ling in systems engineering is a structured representation of the functions, activities or

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

es within the modelled system or subject area.FIPS Publication 183
released of IDEFØ December 1993 by the Computer Systems Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A function model, also called an

activity model In systems engineering, software engineering, and computer science, a function model or functional model is a structured representation of the functions ( activities, actions, processes, operations) within the modeled system or subject area.

or process model, is a graphical representation of an

's function within a defined scope. The purposes of the function model are: to describe the functions and processes, assist with discovery of information needs, help identify opportunities, and establish a basis for determining product and service costs.Reader's Guide to IDEF0 Function Models
Accessed 27 Nov 2008. A function model is created with a functional modelling perspective. A functional perspectives is one or more perspectives possible in process modelling. Other perspectives possible are for example behavioural, organisational or informational. A functional modelling perspective concentrates on describing the dynamic process. The main concept in this modelling perspective is the process, this could be a function, transformation, activity, action, task etc. A well-known example of a modelling language employing this perspective is data flow diagrams. The perspective uses four symbols to describe a process, these being: *Process: Illustrates transformation from input to output. *Store: Data-collection or some sort of material. *Flow: Movement of data or material in the process. *External Entity: External to the modelled system, but interacts with it. Now, with these symbols, a process can be represented as a network of these symbols. This decomposed process is a DFD, data flow diagram. In Dynamic Enterprise Modeling, for example, a division is made in the Control model, Function Model, Process model and

Organizational model An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

Data modelling

Data modelling is the process of creating a

by applying formal data model descriptions using data modelling techniques. Data modelling is a technique for defining business

requirement In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical or functional need that a particular design, product or process aims to satisfy. It is commonly used in a formal sense in engineering design, incl ...

s for a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

. It is sometimes called ''database modelling'' because a

is eventually implemented in a database. Whitten, Jeffrey L.; Lonnie D. Bentley, Kevin C. Dittman. (2004). ''Systems Analysis and Design Methods''. 6th edition. . The figure illustrates the way data models are developed and used today. A conceptual data model is developed based on the data requirements for the application that is being developed, perhaps in the context of an

. The data model will normally consist of entity types, attributes, relationships, integrity rules, and the definitions of those objects. This is then used as the start point for interface or database design.Matthew West and Julian Fowler (1999)
Developing High Quality Data Models
. The European Process Industries STEP Technical Liaison Executive (EPISTLE).

Business process modelling

Business process modelling, not to be confused with the wider

Business Process Management Business process management (BPM) is the discipline in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business ...

(BPM) discipline, is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current ("as is") process may be analyzed and improved in future ("to be"). Business process modelling is typically performed by business analysts and managers who are seeking to improve process efficiency and quality. The process improvements identified by business process modelling may or may not require

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ...

involvement, although that is a common driver for the need to model a business process, by creating a process master. Change management programs are typically involved to put the improved business processes into practice. With advances in technology from large platform vendors, the vision of business process modelling models becoming fully executable (and capable of simulations and round-trip engineering) is coming closer to reality every day.

Systems architecture

The RM-ODP reference model identifies enterprise modelling as providing one of the five viewpoints of an open distributed system. Note that such a system need not be a modern-day IT system: a banking clearing house in the 19th century may be used as an example ().

Enterprise modelling techniques

There are several techniques for modelling the enterprise such as * Active Knowledge Modeling, *

Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO) is an enterprise modelling methodology for transaction modelling, and analysing and representing business processes. It is developed since the 1980s by Jan Dietz and others, and is inspired ...

(DEMO) * Dynamic Enterprise Modeling * Enterprise Modelling Methodology/Open Distributed Processing (EMM/ODP) * Extended Enterprise Modeling Language * Multi-Perspective Enterprise Modelling (MEMO), * Process modelling such as BPMN, CIMOSA, DYA, IDEF3, LOVEM,

PERA Pera may refer to: Places * Pera (Beyoğlu), a district in Istanbul formerly called Pera, now called Beyoğlu ** Galata, a neighbourhood of Beyoğlu, often referred to as Pera in the past * Pêra (Caparica), a Portuguese locality in the district of ...

, etc. * Integrated Enterprise Modeling (IEM), and * Modelling the enterprise with

multi-agent systems A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents.Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Jang, I.; Arvin, F.; Lanzon, A.,A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework fo ...

. More enterprise modelling techniques are developed into

Enterprise Architecture framework An enterprise architecture framework (EA framework) defines how to create and use an enterprise architecture. An architecture framework provides principles and practices for creating and using the architecture description of a system. It struc ...

such as: * ARIS - ARchitecture of Integrated Information Systems * DoDAF - the US Department of Defense Architecture Framework * RM-ODP - Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing * TOGAF - The Open Group Architecture Framework * Zachman Framework - an architecture framework, based on the work of John Zachman at IBM in the 1980s * Service-oriented modeling framework (SOMF), based on the work of Michael Bell And metamodelling frameworks such as: * Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology

Enterprise engineering

Enterprise engineering Enterprise engineering is the body of knowledge, principles, and practices used to design all or part of an enterprise. R.E. Giachetti (2010). ''Design of Enterprise Systems: Theory, Methods, and Architecture''. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. An enterp ...

is the discipline concerning the design and the engineering of enterprises, regarding both their business and

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

. Jan Dietz (2006). ''Enterprise Ontology - Theory and Methodology''. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. In theory and practice two types of enterprise engineering has emerged. A more general connected to engineering and the management of enterprises, and a more specific related to software engineering, enterprise modelling and enterprise architecture. In the field of

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

a more general enterprise engineering emerged, definedEnterprise Engineering Research at Royal Holloway
led by Dr Alan Pilkington, Ver 9.08. Accessed 4 November 2008. as the application of

principals to the

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

of enterprises. It encompasses the application of knowledge, principles, and disciplines related to the analysis, design, implementation and operation of all elements associated with an enterprise. In essence this is an interdisciplinary field which combines

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking ...

and

strategic management In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment ...

as it seeks to engineer the entire enterprise in terms of the products,

es and

business operations Business operations is the ''harvesting'' of value from assets owned by a business. Assets can be either '' physical'' or '' intangible''. An example of value derived from a physical asset, like a building, is rent. An example of value derived fr ...

. The view is one of continuous improvement and continued adaptation as firms, processes and markets develop along their

life cycle Life cycle, life-cycle, or lifecycle may refer to: Science and academia * Biological life cycle, the sequence of life stages that an organism undergoes from birth to reproduction ending with the production of the offspring * Life-cycle hypothesi ...

s. This total systems approach encompasses the traditional areas of research and development, product design, operations and manufacturing as well as information systems and strategic management. This fields is related to

engineering management Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, admini ...

, operations management,

service management Service management in the manufacturing context, is integrated into supply chain management as the intersection between the actual sales and the customer point of view. The aim of high-performance service management is to optimize the service- ...

and systems engineering. In the context of

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development inv ...

a specific field of enterprise engineering has emerged, which deals with the modelling and integration of various organizational and technical parts of

es. In the context of information systems development it has been the area of activity in the organization of the

systems analysis Systems analysis is "the process of studying a procedure or business to identify its goal and purposes and create systems and procedures that will efficiently achieve them". Another view sees system analysis as a problem-solving technique tha ...

, and an extension of the scope of Information Modelling. It can also be viewed as the extension and generalization of the

and systems design phases of the

software development process In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software deve ...

.Gustas, R and Gustiene, P (2003) "Towards the Enterprise engineering approach for Information system modelling across organisational and technical boundaries", in: ''Proceedings of the fifth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems'', vol. 3, Angers, France, 2003, pp. 77-88. Here Enterprise modelling can be part of the early, middle and late information system development life cycle. Explicit representation of the organizational and technical system infrastructure is being created in order to understand the orderly transformations of existing work practices. This field is also called Enterprise architecture, or defined with

Enterprise Ontology Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterprise ...

as being two major parts of Enterprise architecture.

Related fields

Business reference modelling

Business reference modelling is the development of reference models concentrating on the functional and organizational aspects of the core business of an

, service organization or

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

. In enterprise engineering a business reference model is part of an

enterprise architecture framework An enterprise architecture framework (EA framework) defines how to create and use an enterprise architecture. An architecture framework provides principles and practices for creating and using the architecture description of a system. It struc ...

. This framework defines in a series of reference models, how to organize the structure and views associated with an Enterprise Architecture. A reference model in general is a model of something that embodies the basic goal or idea of something and can then be looked at as a reference for various purposes. A business reference model is a means to describe the

of an organization, independent of the

organizational structure An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims. Organizational structure affects organizational action and provides the founda ...

that perform them. Other types of business reference model can also depict the relationship between the

es, business functions, and the business area’s business reference model. These reference model can be constructed in layers, and offer a foundation for the analysis of service components, technology, data, and performance.

Economic modelling

Economic model In economics, a model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework desi ...

ling is the theoretical representation of economic processes by a set of variables and a set of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...

al and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified framework designed to illustrate complex processes, often but not always using mathematical techniques. Frequently, economic models use structural parameters. Structural parameters are underlying

parameters A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

in a model or class of models. A model may have various parameters and those parameters may change to create various properties.Moffatt, Mike. (2008) About.com
Structure
' Economics Glossary; Terms Beginning with S. Accessed June 19, 2008. In general terms, economic models have two functions: first as a simplification of and abstraction from observed data, and second as a means of selection of data based on a paradigm of

econometric Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8� ...

study. The simplification is particularly important for economics given the enormous

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to c ...

of economic processes. This complexity can be attributed to the diversity of factors that determine economic activity; these factors include: individual and

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

decision processes,

resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their av ...

limitations,

environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

al and

geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

constraints, institutional and

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...

requirements and purely random fluctuations. Economists therefore must make a reasoned choice of which variables and which relationships between these variables are relevant and which ways of analyzing and presenting this information are useful.

Ontology engineering

Ontology engineering In computer science, information science and systems engineering, ontology engineering is a field which studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies, which encompasses a representation, formal naming and definition of the categ ...

or ''ontology building'' is a subfield of knowledge engineering that studies the methods and methodologies for building ontologies. In the domain of enterprise architecture, an

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...

is an outline or a schema used to structure objects, their attributes and relationships in a consistent manner. As in enterprise modelling, an ontology can be composed of other ontologies. The purpose of ontologies in enterprise modelling is to formalize and establish the sharability, re-usability, assimilation and dissemination of information across all organizations and departments within an enterprise. Thus, an ontology enables integration of the various functions and processes which take place in an enterprise.G. Fadel, M. Fox,

M. Gruninger Michael Gruninger is a Canadian computer scientist and Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, known for his work on Ontologies in information science. particularly with the Process Specification Language, and in enterp ...

(1994). "A Generic Enterprise Resource Ontology". In: ''Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises''. p. 117-128 One common language with well articulated structure and vocabulary would enable the company to be more efficient in its operations. A common ontology will allow for effective communication, understanding and thus coordination among the various divisions of an enterprise. There are various kinds of ontologies used in numerous environments. While the language example given earlier dealt with the area of information systems and design, other ontologies may be defined for processes, methods, activities, etc., within an enterprise. Using ontologies in enterprise modelling offers several advantages. Ontologies ensure clarity, consistency, and structure to a model. They promote efficient model definition and analysis. Generic

enterprise ontologies Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterprise ...

allow for reusability of and automation of components. Because ontologies are schemata or outlines, the use of ontologies does not ensure proper enterprise model definition, analysis, or clarity. Ontologies are limited by how they are defined and implemented. An ontology may or may not include the potential or capability to capture all of the aspects of what is being modelled.

Systems thinking

The modelling of the enterprise and its environment could facilitate the creation of enhanced understanding of the business domain and processes of the extended enterprise, and especially of the relations—both those that "hold the enterprise together" and those that extend across the boundaries of the enterprise. Since enterprise is a system, concepts used in system thinking(see, for example, (Weinberg, 1982), or, more generally, works by Bunge, for example, (Bunge, 2003) and by Hayek, for example, (Hayek, 1967)) can be successfully reused in modelling enterprises. This way a fast understanding can be achieved throughout the enterprise about how business functions are working and how they depend upon other functions in the organization.

References

External links

Agile Enterprise Modeling
by S.W. Ambler, 2003-2008.

by S.W. Ambler, 2005.
Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures - An International Journal
(EMISA) is a scholarly open access journal with a unique focus on novel and innovative research on Enterprise Models and Information Systems Architectures. {{DEFAULTSORT:Enterprise Modelling Business terms Scientific modelling Systems engineering