Jiri Matula

Towards Co-creation and Co-production in Production Chains Modeled in DEMO with REA Support

Co-creation and Co-production in production chains is the typical way of cooperation one observes in high value industrial production chains. The enterprises in these production chains constitute together also a sophisticated virtual enterprise. While many professional IT systems are operational within these enterprises, there are only IT technologies with a limited scope at a small scale available between these enterprises. The new technologies currently provided by enterprise engineering promise substantial operational improvements; operational control, compliance to business rules, optimization of efficiency and effectiveness. Another objective is support for the REA ontology for high quality financial information systems, which requires a conceptual mapping between REA and DEMO to be found. The first step, a generic DEMO model for co-creation and co-production, has been devised and subjected to early validation. This paper is also a positioning paper, defining future research, specifies two challenges for the DEMO theory and provides foundations for a professional production system.

Enterprise Ontology-Driven Development

Most of the current techniques and approaches for user requirements specification have problems with capturing the appropriate context for development of enterprise information systems. Primarily, they are designed to capture the functional aspects of software rather than its relevancy to an enterprise. Transactions defined in the DEMO (Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations) represent business activities in their existential essence without implementation details. Therefore, they are great candidates to be utilized for the initial development phase of enterprise information systems. The paper exemplifies how to specify software specification the using the DEMO transaction pattern and BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development) technique. This proposal resulted from a significant lack of direct utilization of ontology for enterprise information systems development. The major part of the paper gives a step-by-step explanation of how to integrate DEMO transaction patterns into initial BDD scenarios for the development of enterprise information systems. Such created scenarios provide a perfect guideline in the initial phase of information system development for enterprises. The created scenarios were verified using the domain specific language Gherkin and BDD framework Behat.

The DEMO Co-creation and Co-production Model and Its Utilization

Co-creation and Co-production in production chains is the typical way of cooperation one observes in high value industrial production chains. The DEMO (Design Engineering Methodology for Organization) co-creation and co-production (CC-CP) model is based on the DEMO methodology and the DEMO Enterprise Ontology. This model enables modeling paired transactions applications. The paired transactions mean that the core of the application is formed by two different kinds of transactions, where one kind of transactions is in consideration of the other kind of transactions. This is the fundamental aspect of e.g. accountancy systems, or various applications that utilize a contract. The paper describes and explains the main features of this model and then shows the model’s application on a Rent-A-Car example. This is an example in which service (services) is exchanged for money. The paper also discusses various possibilities that the DEMO CC-CP model provides to properly capture modeling reality, and also mentions future research in this area.

Identification of Business Relevant Features in Information Systems

The paper is devoted to the utilization of DEMO enterprise ontology (Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations) for refactoring purposes in software development. The main contribution of the paper resides in presentation of the method which interconnects ontological models of business processes with information system features implementation. Also, it allows the evaluation of their relevancy for enterprise. In contrast to other methods based on best practices, the proposal uses ontological description of business processes defined upon the theory in DEMO methodology. This makes the proposal unique compared to other approaches. Moreover, it provides a clear differentiation of features which are important for performing tasks by employees in company.

Humanoid robot movement correction based on the visual confirmation

The paper deals with humanoid robots and its interaction inside open areas. The major part of the paper presents the space scanning algorithm which corrects movement imperfections of humanoid robot during exploration of space. Algorithm utilizes visual confirmation retrieved from data collected by robot, what allows to make robot movement much more precise in specific space.The paper deals with humanoid robots and its interaction inside open areas. The major part of the paper presents the space scanning algorithm which corrects movement imperfections of humanoid robot during exploration of space. Algorithm utilizes visual confirmation retrieved from data collected by robot, what allows to make robot movement much more precise in specific space.

Transaction based approach

Transaction based approach is utilized in some methodologies in business process modeling. Essential parts of these transactions are human beings. The notion of agent or actor role is usually used for them. The paper on a particular example describes possibilities of Design Engineering Methodology for Organizations (DEMO) and Resource-Event-Agent (REA) methodology. Whereas the DEMO methodology can be regarded as a generic methodology having its foundation in the theory of Enterprise Ontology the REA methodology is regarded as the domain specific methodology and has its origin in accountancy systems. The results of these approaches is that the DEMO methodology captures everything that happens in the reality with a good empirical evidence whereas the REA methodology captures only changes connected with economic events. Economic events represent either change of the property rights to economic resource or consumption or production of economic resources. This results from the essence of economic events and th...

Towards paired transactions modeling

Paired transactions or paired transfers have their origin in accountancy systems. The Resource-Event-Agent (REA) ontology uses paired transactions as a basic building block for business process modeling. A business process (REA model) is composed of two sets of paired transactions. REA itself originates from accountancy systems and has gradually developed into a full-fledged information system framework. REA model used to be depicted by ER diagrams and later by UML class diagrams. However, both these diagrams were not designed to capture conceptual models which are more precise, comprehensible for domain experts and easily to modify. ORM (Object Role Modeling) represents approach to conceptual modeling which fulfils above mentioned requirements. The main goal of the paper is to derive and describe the ORM model of paired transactions which corresponds to REA exchange model and assess this approach.

Conceptual and logical level of database modeling

Conceptual and logical levels form the top most levels of database modeling. Usually, ORM (Object Role Modeling) and ER diagrams are utilized to capture the corresponding schema. The final aim of business process modeling is to store its results in the form of database solution. For this reason, value oriented business process modeling which utilizes ER diagram to express the modeling entities and relationships between them are used. However, ER diagrams form the logical level of database schema. To extend possibilities of different business process modeling methodologies, the conceptual level of database modeling is needed. The paper deals with the REA value modeling approach to business process modeling using ER-diagrams, and derives conceptual model utilizing ORM modeling approach. Conceptual model extends possibilities for value modeling to other business modeling approaches.

Paired Transactions and Their Models

Paired transactions or paired transfers have their origin in accountancy systems. Resource-Event-Agent (REA) ontology uses paired transactions as a basic building block for business process modelling. A business process (REA model) is composed of two kinds of paired transactions which stand for provide (give) and receive (take) transactions (transfers). The REA core pattern which comes from double-booking entry, constitutes the basic structure from which the REA model is further extended. The REA model was previously depicted by ER diagrams, and later by UML class diagrams. However, neither of these diagrams were designed to capture conceptual models which are more precise and comprehensible for domain experts, and easy to modify. ORM (Object Role Modeling) is a Fact-Based Modeling methodology that represents an approach to conceptual modelling that fulfils the requirements. The article presents fact-based models of paired transactions corresponding to the REA core pattern and REA exchange model. These models were created and verified by NORMA (Natural ORM Architect) and provide both semantic stability and semantic relevance, which is necessary for further incorporating the REA modeling approach into fact-based modeling methodologies of business processes.