Jan L. G. Dietz

The pragmatic web: a manifesto

he Web has been extremely successful in enabling information sharing among a seemingly unlimited number of people worldwide. The evergrowing amount of documents on the Web, however, results in information overload and often makes it difficult to discover the information that is relevant. The goal of the Semantic Web is to develop the basis for intelligent applications that enable more efficient information use by not just providing a set of linked documents but a collection of knowledge repositories T THE PRAGMATIC WEB: AMANIFESTO By Mareike Schoop, Aldo de Moor, and Jan L.G. Dietz

The deep structure of business processes

Delving beneath organizational surface structure to reveal the essential structure of business processes.

Advances in Enterprise Engineering I

7th Enterprise Engineering Working Conference, EEWC 2017, Antwerp, Belgium, May 8-12, 2017, Proceedings

DEMO: Towards a discipline of organisation engineering

Abstract Dynamic Essential Modelling of Organisation (DEMO) is a theory about the ‘construction’ and the ‘operation’ of organisations, that is rooted in the Communicative Action Paradigm regarding human communication and action. In this theory, the ‘working principle’ of an organisation consists of the entering into and the complying with commitments between human beings, where authority, responsibility and competence play an important role. The ‘construction’ of an organisation consists of a coherent whole of transactions, i.e., recurrent patterns of communication and action in which the commitments are entered into and complied with. DEMO is also a methodology for modelling, (re)designing and (re)engineering organisations based on that theory. Up to now some thirty projects have been carried out with DEMO. These projects are of very different kinds and they have been carried out in various types of organisations. The success factor has been the same for all these projects, namely the practical relevance of the concepts of DEMO, as well as their clear and precise definitions. Both managers and employees appear to be able to participate readily in identifying and understanding problems, and in generating appropriate and feasible solutions.

The discipline of enterprise engineering

A century ago, Taylor published a landmark in the organisational sciences: his Principles of Scientific Management. Many researchers have elaborated on Taylor’s principles, or have been influenced otherwise. The authors of the current paper evaluate a century of enterprise development, and conclude that a paradigm shift is needed for dealing adequately with the challenges that modern enterprises face. Three generic goals are identified. The first one, intellectual manageability, is the basis for mastering complexity; current approaches fall short in assisting professionals to master the complexity of enterprises and enterprise changes. The second goal, organisational concinnity, is conditional for making strategic initiatives operational; current approaches do not, or inadequately, address this objective. The third goal, social devotion, is the basis for achieving employee empowerment as well as knowledgeable management and governance; modern employees are highly educated knowledge workers; yet, the mindset of managers has not evolved accordingly. The emerging discipline of Enterprise Engineering, as conceived by the authors, is considered to be a suitable vehicle for achieving these goals. It does so by providing new, powerful theories and effective methodologies. A theoretical framework is presented for positioning the theories, goals, and fundamentals of enterprise engineering in four classes: philosophical, ontological, ideological and technological.

Communicative action-based business process and information systems modelling with DEMO

Abstract. Abstract. The field of communicative action‐based modelling of business processes and information systems has attracted more and more attention in recent years. Inspired by the seminal work of Winograd and Flores, researchers have proposed several modelling approaches. In this article we discuss communicative action‐based modelling approaches in general and the DEMO (dynamic essential modelling of organizations) approach in particular. Besides establishing the theoretical foundations of this modelling approach, we also apply DEMO to a case study, and we discuss how the resulting models can be used for information systems design and business process optimization.

Basic notions regarding business processes and supporting information systems

In order to achieve and maintain an optimal fit between business processes (BPs) and business process support systems (BPSs), both need to be understood thoroughly and coherently. Moreover, to benefit fully from the potentials of modern information and communication technology (ICT), the deep structure that lies behind the surface structure of BPs should be understood. The Ψ-theory, which is only summarized in this paper, provides the basis for such an understanding of BPs and BPSs as well as for some other basic notions. In particular, the notions of design and engineering and of architecture and ontology will be addressed. The conclusion is that these notions can consistently and coherently be related to each other, on the said theoretical basis, such that the concurrent (re)design and (re)engineering of BPs and BPSs can be performed more effectively.

Identifying Business Components on the Basis of an Enterprise Ontology

Companies are more and more focusing on their core competencies, outsourcing business tasks to their business partners. In order to support collaboration between business partners, adequate information systems need to be built automating inter-organizational business processes. The bases for such information systems are business components combining software artefacts from different vendors to applications which are individual to each customer. The crucial factors in identifying and building reusable, marketable and self-contained business components are the appropriateness and the quality of the underlying business domain models. This paper therefore introduces a process for the identification of business components based on an enterprise ontology, being a business domain model satisfying well defined quality criteria.

Modelling dynamic behaviour of business organisations—extension of DEMO from a semiotic perspective

An organisation is by virtue an information system, in which information is used for communication and coordination of activities. This information system is built upon the organisational infrastructure and is supposed to support the business processes. To study the organisational behaviour in the form of business processes, one needs an effective modelling method to capture dynamics of business processes. In this paper we introduce the DEMO methodology for organisational modelling. An extension of the methodology has been made by incorporating a semiotic method. DEMO is a cross-disciplinary theory for describing and explaining the action of organisations. It contains several model types, each expressed in a specific diagram. They collectively provide the necessary knowledge for information systems development and business process redesign. The process model of DEMO has been discussed in detail in this paper. A need for a facility in DEMO has been identified to formulize rules and conditions for optional and conditional actions. Towards this end, a semiotic method, namely NAM has been chosen as a complement to DEMO for this purpose. After producing process model in terms of DEMO, we use NAM to capture norms (e.g. rules, regulations and conditions). The norms determine the conditions and constrains in controlling optional and conditional actions. They govern the behaviour of actors (agents), normally to decide when certain actions are performed. Norms define clearly the roles, functions, responsibilities and authorities of the actors. The extended DEMO has been applied to a real-life problem for demonstration purposes.

The Benefit of Enterprise Ontology in Identifying Business Components

Companies are more than ever participating in so-called value networks while being confronted with an increasing need for collaboration with their business partners. In order to better perform in such value networks information systems supporting not only the intra- but also the inter-enterprise business processes are necessary in order to enable and ease collaboration between business partners. Therefore, they need to be interoperable. As the basis for building these information systems the concepts of enterprise ontology and business components are very promising. The notion of enterprise ontology, as presented in this paper, is a powerful revelation of the essence of an enterprise or an enterprise network. Reusable and self-contained business components with well-defined interaction points facilitate the accessing and execution of coherent packages of business functionality. The identification of business components, however, is still a crucial factor. The reported research seeks to improve the identification of business components based on the ontological model of an enterprise, satisfying well-defined quality criteria.