Enterprise ontology theory and methodology

Lý thuyết về ontology

Enterprise Ontology Jan L.G. Dietz Enterprise Ontology Theory and Methodology With 99 Figures and 9 Tables 123 Author Jan L.G. Dietz Department of Software Technology Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science Delft University of Technology Mekelweg 4 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands J.L.G.Dietz@tudelft.nl Library of Congress Control Number: 2006920521 ACM Computing Cl assification (1998): H.1, H.2, I.6, J.1 ISBN-10 3-540-29169-5 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York ISBN-13 978-3-540-29169-5 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media springer.com © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 Printed in Germany The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant pro- tective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typeset by the author using a Springer T E X macro package Production: LE-T E XJelonek,Schmidt&VöcklerGbR,Leipzig Cover design: KünkelLopka Werbeagentur, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper 45/3100/YL - 543210 To my CIAO! friends Prologue There is nothing more practical than a good theory When you study the course of affairs in an arbitrary enterprise as a naïve observer, you notice that the persons in the enterprise seem busy like ants in executing a lot of different a ctivities, thereby using a variety of ma- chines and equipment. These persons appear to produce and shuffle around a lot of reports and other documents, while at the sa m e time co m municat- ing quite a lot too, eith er face-to-face or by telephone or by some other means. Your first impression therefore invariably is one of huge diversity and complexity, and of an apparent lack of structure and logic. Moreover, if you revi sit the enterprise after some time, it could very well be the case that you hardly recognize it, while from the outside it is still the same, i.e., the enterprise is still in the same business. You may see new persons and you may see kno wn persons doing other things, you may notice that other machines and/or equi pment are being used, and that the flows o f docu- ments and forms have changed. The only constant factors seem to be the huge diversity and complexity, and the difficulty in seeing a structure or logic in it. You may wonder how this enterprise managed to change. What was the red esign plan, and what was the reengineer ing plan, and why would they be right? How did one proceed to bring about the intended changes? How were they justified and ev aluated? Everyone who directed or carried out a substantial organizational change would call these questions highly relevant, and, probably, also rather academic. He or she knows that substantial changes get acco m- plished generally only with a lot of cheer luck, meaning that they rely on unprecedented, sometimes magical achievements of the people who actu- ally do t he work. This current practice of many unsuccessful project s, of lucky chances instead of controlled execution of well-designed plans, con- stitutes the motivation for the work that is described in this book, work that has been both theoretical and practical, and certainly not academic in the colloquial sense of the word. VIII Prologue If one thing catches the eye in almost all literature ab out and ap- proaches to the (re)designing and (re)engineering of enterprises, including such subareas as business process design and engineering, and information systems design and engineering, it is the lack of a well-founded theory about the operation of enterprises. Often even the most basic notions, like action and actor an d process, are not clearly and precisely defined. Obvi- ously, one cannot expect much real help of such approaches. The gro wing interest in the practical application of the notion of ontol- ogy provides a chance to make a fresh start, to bring approaches to the (re)designing and (re)engineering of enterprises to a higher level of qual- ity. In order to achieve this, one has to find a way to separate the stable on- tological essence of an enterprise from the variable way in which it is real- ized and implemented. That is the only hope for mastering the diversity and complexity in contemporary ente rprises. What we need is a theory in which the concepts of essence and realizatio n and implementation and all other relevant concepts have a well-defined place. Such a theory and a matching methodology, which has proven to be effective in num erous practical proje cts, constitute the contents of this book. I am fully awar e that I have profited from the feedback I received in the past fifteen years from a large number of people, which continually caused me to reconsider my thoughts 1 . Instead of listing the names I have in mind, which would do injustice to the ones I forget, I confine myself to mention- ing that they belong, in a stimulating mixture, to three groups. The first consists of the MSc and PhD students, formerly at the University of Maas- tricht, and currently at Delft University of Technology. The second is con- stituted by the colleagues and assistants, in both universities, I have col- laborated with or still collaborate with. The third group consists of practitioners, in all lines of business. I a m particularly happy to notice that nearly all current Ph D students belong also to this group. They know fro m their own experience the problems in enterprises, an d they have d iscovered that there is only one way out: improving your way of thinking. I could have waited for another couple of years before having this book published, while continually adding and improving things. Instead I de- cided to do it now, for several reasons, of which the most important one is that I wanted to finish something. In this volume, I focus on describing the theory and the methodology of enterprise ontology, leaving untouched probably the most interesting part for pr actitioners: the over whelming amount of practical experien ce in applying the methodology, which has r e- cently been surveyed [24]. I can only promise that this will be taken care 1 I refer here to a quote that is attributed to Richard Feynmann: “If you think you understand something, you have not thought about it enough”. Prologue IX of; there will appear a second volume containing a se lection of the enor- mous variety of practical applications. For now, I wish you a joyful learn- ing experience in studying this first volume on enterprise ontology. Delft, January 2006, Jan L.G. Dietz Contents Part A: Introduction 1 Outline of the Book 3 2 What is Enterprise Ontology? 7 3 An Explanatory Case 15 3.1 The Analysis of the Case Volley 16 3.2 The Ontological Model of the Case Volley 24 Part B: Foundations 4 Factual Knowledge 3 5 4.1 The Ontological Parallelogram 35 4.2 The Ontology of a World 41 5 A World Ontology Specification Languag e 45 5.1 The Declaration of Statum Types 46 5.2 The Specification of Existence Laws 49 5.3 The Derivation of Statum Types 51 5.4 Factum T ypes and Occurrence Laws 55 6 The N otion of System 57 6.1 The Distinct System Notions 57 6.2 Formal Definition Ontological System 6 0 7 The N otion of Model 63 7.1 Definition of Model 6 3 7.2 The White-Box Model 65 7.3 The Black-Box Model 67 8 The Role of Ontology in Enterprise Engineering 71 8.1 Design and E ngineering 71 8.2 The System Development Process 75 XII Contents Part C: The Theory 9 The O peration Axiom 81 9.1 Coordination Acts 83 9.2 Production Acts 85 9.3 Actors 87 10 The Transaction Axiom 89 10.1 The Basic Transaction Pattern 90 10.2 The Standard Transaction Pattern 93 10.3 The Cancellation Patterns 95 11 The Composition Axiom 99 12 The D istinction Axiom 105 12.1 Communication 106 12.2 Coordination 109 12.3 Production 113 13 The Organization Theorem 115 13.1 The Realization of an Organization 117 13.2 The Implementation of an Organization 120 14 The CRISP Model 127 14.1 Transaction Time Aspects 127 14.2 Formal Definition of the C RISP Model 130 14.3 The Crispienet 133 Part D: The Methodology 15 The Modeling Method 139 15.1 The Distinct Aspect Models 139 15.2 The Perfoma-Informa-Forma Analysis 144 15.3 The Coordination-Actors-Production Analysis 149 15.4 The Transaction Pattern Synthesis 154 15.5 The Result Structure Analysis 157 15.6 The Construction Synthesis 158 15.7 The Organization Synthesis 158 16 The Interaction Model 1 59 16.1 The IAM of the Library 160 Contents XIII 16.2 The IAM of the Pizzeria 166 16.3 Practical Relevance of the Interaction Model 170 17 The Process Model 173 17.1 The PM of the Library 174 17.2 The PM of the Pizzeria 180 17.3 Practical Relevance of the Process Mode l 183 18 The Action Model 185 18.1 The AM of the Library 186 18.2 The AM of the Pizzeria 191 18.3 Practical Relevance of the Action Model 195 19 The State Model 197 19.1 The SM of the Library 200 19.2 The SM of the Pizzeria 203 19.3 Practical Relevance of the State Model 204 20 The Interstriction Model 205 20.1 The ISM of the Library 206 20.2 The ISM of the Pizzeria 209 20.3 Practical Relevance of the Interstriction Model 213 Epilogue 215 Appendix: The Example Cases 217 Bibliography 225 Glossary 229 Index 241 [...]... outline, in Chap 1, the notion of enterprise ontology, in the context of ontology in general and of the observed societal needs for enterprise ontology, is discussed in Chap 2 It turns out that the notion of enterprise ontology could be beneficial not only for managers and designers of organizations and information systems, but also for the employees and the clients of an enterprise, be it a commercial... What is Enterprise Ontology? Enterprise ontology is a novel subject, and writing a book on this novel subject puts the author under the obligation to provide at least two kinds of explanation One explanation regards the justification of presenting yet another point of view on enterprises Why and how would enterprise ontology assist in coping with the current and future problems related to enterprises?... entrepreneur can 8 2 What is Enterprise Ontology? nowadays not succeed without a basic, systematic, and integral understanding of how enterprises work In order to really cope with the current and the future challenges, a conceptual model of the enterprise is needed that is coherent, comprehensive, consistent, and concise, and that only shows the essence of the operation of an enterprise model By coherent... that 2 What is Enterprise Ontology? 13 even if you will be the only one in your working environment who possesses this new understanding of enterprises, you will be rewarded for studying the book and learning the methodology We can assert this on the basis of over 15 years practical experience in applying the DEMO3 methodology, which this book elaborates, to all kinds of enterprises and for all kinds... this enterprise, you will acquire a basic knowledge of enterprise ontology that is appropriate and sufficient to study the remainder of the book Foundation Before we present the theory that underlies our notion of enterprise ontology in Part C, it is necessary to lay in Part B a sound foundation for it First, in Chap 4, we investigate meticulously what it means to have knowledge of some world, and in... defined and discussed, among which are state, transition and event The investigation leads to the relevant distinction between two kinds of facts, which we will call facta and stata Chapter 5 contains the grammar of a first order logical language that is fully appropriate for describing the ontology of a world For a thorough understanding of our notion of enterprise ontology, in fact, for understanding... impreciseness The notion of ontology as applied in [29], but also in [28], [30], and [58], is what we will call in Chap 4 a world ontology Common examples of such an ontology are the world of traveling or the world of cooking and dining The focus is on defining the core elements in such a world and their interrelationships in a most clear and extensive way The notion of ontology as applied in this... 4, a number of well-known notions are precisely defined, making use of the new notion of ontology Also, the need for developing the new discipline of enterprise engineering is discussed Theory Part C contains the presentation of the theory that underlies our notion of enterprise ontology, called the -theory 2 An enterprise will be defined as a (heterogeneous) system in the category of social systems... instead of any relevant understanding And in case you persevere, there is a high chance that you will discover so many errors and omissions in the description that reading has become solving a puzzle As a concrete example, the implementation of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) package in an enterprise, even of only a few modules, may easily take several years and cost the enterprise a huge amount of... business processes of these enterprises have become transparent to you Would that not be great? So, this is our goal: to offer a new understanding of systems of any kind, and of enterprises in particular, such that one is able to look through the distracting and confusing appearance of an enterprise right into its deep kernel, like an X-ray machine can let you look through the skin and the tissues of the . assification (1998): H.1, H.2, I.6, J.1 ISBN-10 3-5 4 0-2 916 9-5 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York ISBN-13 97 8-3 -5 4 0-2 916 9-5 Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York This. Enterprise Ontology Jan L.G. Dietz Enterprise Ontology Theory and Methodology With 99 Figures and 9 Tables 123 Author Jan L.G.