Showing papers by "Jelena Zdravkovic published in 2011"

Bringing Enterprise Modeling Closer to Model-Driven Development

Abstract: Enterprise Modeling (EM) provides the means for using models to represent organizational knowledge from different perspectives. When information systems (IS) are involved, Model-Driven Development (MDD) is an approach that focuses on the use of models as primary development artifacts. By observing that EM provides the context for high level requirements, which in turn are the input to MDD, we propose a meta-model that integrates enterprise models and requirements with design models in MDD. The meta-model defines six models that cover both organizational and IS development knowledge. Inter-model relationships ensure an integrated view of the enterprise and the supporting IS by allowing model components to be used across different models. The integrated meta-model is demonstrated through an example case study.

Modeling business strategy: A meta-model of strategy maps and balanced scorecards

Abstract: Business strategy is aimed to support the vision of an enterprise, by paving the way to achieve it through goals that direct the strategy's execution. However, there is a lack of means to establish and assess the alignment of business strategy and goal oriented requirements engineering. The objective of our ongoing research is to model business strategy in order to establish well-defined and traceable links with system requirements. In this paper, we propose a business strategy meta-model for Strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards. The validity of the meta-model is tested through a case scenario using OWL and Telos.

Modeling Business Strategy: a Consumer Value Perspective

Abstract: Business strategy lays out the plan of an enterprise to achieve its vision by providing value to its customers. Typically, business strategy focuses on economic value and its relevant exchanges with customers and does not directly address consumer values. However, consumer values drive customers’ choices and decisions to use a product or service, and therefore should have a direct impact on business strategy. This paper explores whether and how consumer values influence business strategy, and how they might be linked to IS solutions that support the implementation of such strategies. To address these questions, the study maps consumer values to a business strategy approach via a meta-model commonly used for such purposes, based on strategy maps and balanced scorecards (SMBSC). Additionally, the applicability of the mappings is illustrated via a case scenario where the mappings are applied and the business strategy conceptualization captures them. Finally, based on these mappings, high level guidelines for linking consumer values to requirements for the development of IS solutions through business strategy conceptualization are proposed.

Analyzing the Integration between Requirements and Models in Model Driven Development

Abstract: In Model Driven Development (MDD), models replace software code as the development artifact. At the same time, requirements represent the information that is elaborated in models. However, despite the tight relationship between models and requirements, only a few MDD approaches provide the necessary methodological guidelines and tool support to explicitly facilitate this relationship. We analyze approaches for integrating requirements with models within MDD and highlight the common characteristics, benefits, and problems. Based on the analysis, we elicit a set of general properties that need to be fulfilled when considering the integration of requirements and models, and we assess the contribution of the considered approaches accordingly.

Modeling Competition-Driven Business Strategy for Business IT Alignment

Abstract: Business strategy aims at supporting the vision of an enterprise, by paving the way to achieve it through goals that direct the strategy’s execution. Aligning business strategy to system requirements requires explicit models from both business strategy and requirements engineering. However, existing business strategy definition approaches are informal and their syntax is based on natural language, therefore, they cannot be used in model-driven alignment. An objective of our research is to define a well-structured business strategy modeling language. In this paper, we propose a business strategy meta-model based on Porter’s work on competition driven strategy and its extension by Stabell and Fjeldstad. Our UML meta-model is formalized in Telos and OWL. An initial validation is performed by instantiating the meta-model using a case scenario.

Modeling Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards using iStar

Abstract: Aligning business strategy to enterprise models requires explicit models from both areas, mapped to each other. Mapping existing business strategy definition approaches to requirement engineering pr ...

Towards goal-driven access to process warehouse: Integrating goals with process warehouse for business process analysis

Abstract: Analysis and improvement of business processes, one of the core phases in the BPM life cycle, is becoming on top of the agenda for many enterprises An emerging approach to analyze business processes is to use the business intelligence approaches that attempt to facilitate the analytical capabilities of business process management systems by implementing process-oriented data warehouse and mining techniques However, very little work has been done on employing business orientation in the design and utilization of process warehouse, which greatly limit the number of users who are able to fully exploit the potential of warehouse technology The approach presented in this paper, addresses that limitation by attempting to integrate business goals with warehouse The proposed approach to integration spans across two levels, conceptual and implementation; the first defines the concepts that are used to relate goals and process warehouse; the latter is used to implement the concepts and the relations, to link warehouse data and goal records in relational databases The proposed approach enhances the way users access warehouse data and interpret the data To facilitate the use of the proposed approach we have implemented a prototype The evaluation results, though preliminary, provides evidence of the usefulness of our approach

An MDA method for service modeling by formalizing REA and open-edi business frameworks with SBVR

Abstract: Business frameworks offer great opportunities of communication between people for working on the enterprise system engineering processes, as well as for eliciting services that the enterprise can offer in collaboration contexts. However, these kinds of frameworks, such as Resource-Event-Agent and Open-edi, recently unified in Open-edi Business Ontology (OeBTO), lack formal representations. This fact considerably limits their use in system development, particularly in model-driven development methods where the efficiency of transformations is of great importance. In this paper we suggest a formalization of OeBTO using OMG’s standard Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR), as a method for creating a service-centric business model. This makes it possible to provide the necessary formal logic foundation to allow automatic processing of the business model and its transformation to a system-level service model. An example from the bank loan business sector is used to argument the application of the method.

Towards Semantic Interoperability Between C2 Systems Following the Principles of Distributed Simulation

Abstract: : Increased focus on multi-functional and multi-national operations brings new requirements to military command and control, in addition to other capability requirements. Parallel but separate from this development, interoperability has been of major concern within Modeling and Simulation (M&S) for years, especially in connection with standards for distributed simulations, e.g. High Level Architecture (HLA). Both areas share a need to create configurations of systems where elements of information exchanged are interpreted similarly among all participating parties, preserving the intended meaning (i.e. semantic interoperability). An effort to address this need is currently under development within NATO IST-094, Semantic Interoperability Framework (SIF), which includes tool and methodology support for harmonising data/information models on a semantic level, as well as mediators to translate between heterogeneous abstractions. The framework builds on a knowledge-based approach utilizing emerging semantic technologies, such as ontologies. In this paper we investigate how, and to what extent, concepts, solutions and experiences from the distributed simulation community can help fulfill the requirements of the SIF. Based on this, a common process is presented which is aimed at governing the development and execution of system configurations to meet expressed business requirements.

Exploring Business Value Models for E-Service Design

Abstract: Contemporary enterprises face strong pressures to increase competitiveness by engaging in alliances of several kinds. In a rapidly increasing degree, traditional organizational structures evolve towards online business using modern ICT - such as the Internet, semantic standards, process- and service-oriented architectures. For efficient applications of inter-organizational information systems, the alignment between business and ICT is a key factor. At the ICT level, Web services are used as the cornerstones for modeling the interaction points of Web applications. So far, development of Web services has focused on a technical perspective, such as the development of standards for message exchanges and service coordination. Thereby, business concepts, such as economic values exchanged among the cooperating actors, cannot be traced in Web service specifications. As a consequence, business and ICT models become difficult to keep aligned. To address this issue, the authors propose a MDA-based approach for design of software services which may be implemented using Web services and Web service coordinations. The proposal focuses on a value-explorative analysis and modeling of business services at the CIM level, and model transformations using UML 2 to the PIM level, by utilizing well-defined mappings.