Towards a coherent enterprise modelling landscape

Marija Bjekovic, Henderik Alex Proper, Jean-Sébastien Sottet
2012 The Practice of Enterprise Modeling  
When modelling enterprises, for instance as part of an enterprise (re)engineering effort, one typically uses a range of models. These models differ in their intended purpose in terms of the domain which the model should pertain to and the intended usage of the model by its audience. The models are therefore generally created in purpose-specific modelling languages; i.e. not just domain-specific languages. While using purpose-specific modelling languages has clear benefits in terms of the
more » ... lity of the language to a purpose at hand, there is also a downside to it. As each of the resulting enterprise models refers to (different aspects of) the same (version of the) enterprise, it is desirable to maintain coherence across the different models. The use of a wide range of purpose-specific models (and modelling languages) can easily lead to a fragmentation of the modelling landscape; i.e. a break up of coherence. This leads to a natural polarity between coherence and purpose-specificity. We argue that this polarity requires careful management, but first and foremost a better understanding. To cope with, or avoid, the consequences of fragmentation, different strategies to achieve the integration of models and languages used in enterprise modelling have been suggested in the literature. These approaches, however, focus mainly on syntactic aspects of the models, while sometimes indeed including their (formal) semantics, and only to some extent their pragmatics. The aim of the research, reported on in this paper, is to achieve a deeper understanding of the needs and challenges of the use of different models in enterprise modelling.
dblp:conf/ifip8-1/BjekovicPS12 fatcat:jhq3h6ulxfbb5iyiityoqmuldq