BORO as a Foundation to Enterprise Ontology

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio de Cesare ◽  
Chris Partridge
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Systems Integration ◽  
Enterprise Systems ◽  
Enterprise Modeling ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
Foundational Ontology ◽  
Enterprise Ontology

ABSTRACT Modern business organizations experience increasing challenges in the development and evolution of their enterprise systems. Typical problems include legacy re-engineering, systems integration/interoperability, and the architecting of the enterprise. At the heart of all these problems is enterprise modeling. Many enterprise modeling approaches have been proposed in the literature with some based on ontology. Few however adopt a foundational ontology to underpin a range of enterprise models in a consistent and coherent manner. Fewer still take data-driven re-engineering as their natural starting point for modeling. This is the approach taken by Business Object Reference Ontology (BORO). It has two closely intertwined components: a foundational ontology and a re-engineering methodology. These were originally developed for the re-engineering of enterprise systems and subsequently evolved into approaches to enterprise architecture and systems integration. Together these components are used to systematically unearth reusable and generalized business patterns from existing data. Most of these patterns have been developed for the enterprise context and have been successfully applied in several commercial projects within the financial, defense, and oil and gas industries. BORO's foundational ontology is grounded in philosophy and its metaontological choices (including perdurantism, extensionalism, and possible worlds) follow well-established theories. BORO's re-engineering methodology is rooted in the philosophical notion of grounding; it emerged from the practice of deploying its foundational ontology and has been refined over the last 25 years. This paper presents BORO and its application to enterprise modeling.

Designing a Virtual Enterprise Architecture using Structured System Dynamics

2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Nikitas A. Assimakopoulos ◽  
Anastasios N. Riggas
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Core Competencies ◽  
Virtual Enterprise ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Efficient Integration ◽  
Structured System ◽  
The Impact

The starting point for establishing a Virtual Enterprise is a set of existing enterprises which might contribute with some of their functionalities (core competencies) to the formation of the virtual entity. The most important issue, in this formation, is the rapid integration of the business processes of the participating companies. The architecture of the VE must assist companies desiring to enter into a virtual relationship by defining the functions and interfaces of critical business processes, thus allowing for a more rapid and efficient integration of the expertise which will be contributed by each partner in the virtual enterprise. While the integration of computer and communication technologies are no doubt critical issues, the successful attainment of the business goals of the virtual enterprise often depends on its ability to align the business processes and practices of partner enterprises. Focus of this paper, is the presentation of Structured System Dynamics (SSPS) multi-methodology for the design and the evaluation of a Virtual Enterprise Architecture. SSPS uses Systems Thinking and System Dynamics principles as launch pad for its approach. The Systemic Methodologies of Problem Structuring Methodology (PSM) and SAST are also integrated in this new Multi-Methodology. SSPS is a new practical and scientific tool in designing and evaluating a VE architecture providing the ability to determine the impact, reliability, success of the Architectures' models created, refine them and identify potential process improvements. A framework for the rapid and efficient integration of the business processes of the participating companies in the virtual enterprise is provided. For this multi-methodology, a real-life application is also presented for a Virtual Enterprise that constructs Wireless Payment Mechanisms.

Adapted Methodology for Evaluating EOR Reserves and Resources, Incorporated and Applied at an Oil and Gas Company

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilibeth Chiquinquira Perdomo ◽  
Carlos Alvarez ◽  
Maria Edith Gracia ◽  
Guillermo Danilo Salomone ◽  
Gilberto Ventuirini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Securities And Exchange Commission ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Pilot Projects ◽  
Oil Reserves ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Petroleum Resources

Abstract As other companies registered in the US stock market, the company reports oil and gas reserves, in compliance with the definitions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In addition, it complies internally with the guidelines established by the Petroleum Resources Management System to certify its resources. The PRMS focuses on supporting consistent evaluation of oil resources based on technically sound industry practices, providing fundamental principles for the assessment and classification of oil reserves and resources, but does not provide specific guidance for the classification and categorization of quantities associated with IOR projects. Recently, the company has implemented EOR pilot projects, and their results seem to show commerciality for future development or expansion to new areas, displaying multiple opportunities and proposals to incorporate reserves and resources. So far, the pilot projects and their expansions have been addressed only from the point of view of incremental projects, as an improvement over the previous secondary recovery. The company does not have sufficient track record in booking reserves or resources from EOR projects, their quantities have been incorporated following bibliographic references and results of EOR projects with proven commerciality around the world. For this reason, the need arose to have a tool that provides the company with methodological criteria to evaluate the resources and reserves inherent in this type of project, that incorporate the "best practices" of the industry and that respect the guidelines and definitions of PRMS for incremental projects. That was how, the need to meet this challenging goal led company to develop its "EOR Resources and Reserves Assessment Guide" with the advice of a renowned consulting company. Although the Guide is not intended to be a review of the large body of existing IOR literature, it contains several useful references that serve as a starting point for understanding the IOR project for assessment process of resources and reserves. This document shows the process of development and implementation of the EOR guide, complementing the existing guides within the corporation and providing the company with a positive result within the internal processes of Audit, reserves and resources for this type of projects.

Zoning the Past: Brokers, Babbitts, and the Memory Work of Commercial Real Estate

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-311
Author(s):  
JAMES S. MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Commercial Real Estate ◽  
American Business ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Modern Business

From the moment of its publication in 1922, Sinclair Lewis's novel Babbitt was widely hailed as a text that harnessed the tactics of literary realism to the ambitions of social science. Over the years, in fact, critics have consistently linked Lewis's dissection of a crass, puerile, and materialistic white-collar culture to a conception of the novel as barely fictionalized ethnography – a conceit that has scripted the author as the twentieth century's foremost “cartographer” of American business life. Taking this fact as its starting point, this essay shows how Lewis's efforts to create an ethnographic record of modern business life ultimately encoded an even deeper commentary on the peculiar role that industrial–commercial development played in shaping the ways white-collar Americans thought about, valued, and pursued traces of their putative “heritage.” Rather than simply depict industrial–commercial society's destruction of the past, I argue, Babbitt instead labored to create a necessary genealogy for this regime: one that provided the nation's new, forward-lurching order with the kind of temporal coherence and historical context that its own ascendance seemed most directly to expunge. In making such an argument, this essay seeks to query a long-standing presumption within public memory studies that for years has construed the idea(l)s of historical recovery and the operations of commercial capitalism as fundamentally, if not inherently, incompatible. Balefully derided for mass-producing and mass-marketing a commodified pastness, dismissed as tools for replacing authentic history with ersatz heritage, modern development practices have stood for the vast majority of critics as proof of Americans' fundamental disconnection from their common and authentic history. Seeking to complicate this view, this essay shows instead how Babbitt can be read as a powerful counterexample to such logic – one that casts modernization less as an adversary than as an adjunct to prevailing modes of public recollection.

A Theory for Enterprise Coherence Governance

2014 ◽  
pp. 150-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roel Wagter ◽  
Henderik A. Proper ◽  
Dirk Witte
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Product Portfolio ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Project Failures ◽  
It Support ◽  
Key Aspects

In this chapter, the authors pose a theory for the governance of enterprise coherence. The proposed theory consists of three key ingredients: an Enterprise Coherence-governance Assessment (ECA), an Enterprise Coherence Framework (ECF), and an Enterprise Coherence Governance (ECG) approach. The ECA provides an explicit indication of the degree at which an organisation governs its coherence, while also providing a base to achieve a shared understanding of the level of coherence, and actions needed to improve it. The ECF is a practice-based framework that enables enterprises to make the coherence between key aspects, such as business, finance, culture, IT, etc. explicit. The ECG approach offers the instruments to guard/improve the level of coherence in enterprises during transformations. An important trigger to develop this new theory was the observation that many transformation projects fail. These failures even included projects that used an explicit enterprise architecture to steer the transformation. The theory was developed as part of the GEA (General Enterprise Architecting) research programme, involving twenty client organizations. Based on a survey of the possible causes for the project failures, the requirements for the research programme are identified. In developing the theory on enterprise coherence, the following hypothesis is used as a starting point: the overall performance of an enterprise is positively influenced by a strong coherence among the key aspects of the enterprise, including business processes, organizational culture, product portfolio, human resources, information systems, IT support, etc. The research programme uses a combination of design science-based iterations and case study-based research to develop and iterate the theory for enterprise coherence governance. In this chapter, the authors also discuss one of the conducted (real world) case studies, showing the application of the enterprise coherence theory.

Model-Driven Applications

2014 ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tong-Ying Yu
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Enterprise Modeling ◽  
Enterprise Engineering ◽  
Analysis And Design ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Business Change ◽  
Enterprise Model ◽  
The Right

How to bridge the gap between business and Information Technology (IT) has always been a critical issue for both the developers and IT managers. The individualized, differentiated demands by different customers and situations, the constantly changing in both business and IT are great challenges to the applications for enterprises. In this chapter, the authors respectively discuss the left side (computer) in software engineering, with Object-Orientation (OO), Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), Domain-Driven Development (DDD), Agile, etc., and the right side (the business) in Enterprise Engineering (EE) with Enterprise Modeling (EM), and Enterprise Architecture (EA) of the gap. It is shown there are some fundamental problems, such as the transforming barrier between analysis and design model, the entanglement of business change and development process, and the limitation to the enterprise engineering approaches such as EA by IT. Our solution is concentrated on the middle, the inevitable model as a mediator between human, computer, and the real world. The authors introduce Model-Driven Application (MDApp), which is based on Model-Driven Mechanism (MDM), operated on the evolutionary model of the target thing at runtime; it is able to largely avoid the transforming barrier and remove the entanglement. Thus, the architecture for Enterprise Model Driven Application (EMDA) is emerged, which is able to strongly support EE and adapts to the business changing at runtime.

Service Patterns for Enterprise Information Systems

2005 ◽  
pp. 201-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantinos Constantinides ◽  
George Roussos
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Software Engineering ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Enterprise Systems ◽  
Enterprise Information ◽  
Enterprise Information Systems ◽  
Practice Guide ◽  
Service Patterns ◽  
Starting Point

This chapter introduces service patterns for SOA-based enterprise systems. The authors believe that the deployment of such patterns would be of considerable value both as a best-practice guide for practitioners as well as a starting point for further research in their role in software engineering. A comprehensive catalog of service patterns is included in this chapter. In the catalog, each pattern is discussed in the context of selected examples and in terms of a brief description of its role, functionality, and deployment. For each pattern there are recommendations on implementation and a practical usage scenario.

Evolutionary Architecting of Embedded and Enterprise Software and Systems

2013 ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Jakob Axelsson
Keyword(s):  
Embedded System ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
New Products ◽  
Enterprise Systems ◽  
Embedded Software ◽  
Business Value ◽  
Maturity Model ◽  
Enterprise Software ◽  
The Embedded System ◽  
Over Time

Many industries rely heavily on embedded software and systems to maximize business value in their products. These systems are very complex, and the architecture is important to control the complexity and make development efficient. There are often also connections between the embedded system and the different lifecycle processes, and hence, to the enterprise systems supporting those processes. It is rare to start from scratch when developing new products, and instead, these companies evolve their products over time, which means that architecting needs to be evolutionary. This chapter describes what such an evolutionary architecting process can look like based on observations from industry, and how the process can be continuously improved using a maturity model. It is also presented how the embedded system relates to different elements of the enterprise architecture.

An Applied Mathematical Model for Business Transformation and Enterprise Architecture

2020 ◽  
pp. 340-376
Keyword(s):  
Success Factors ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Societal Transformation ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
Security Operations ◽  
Business Engineering ◽  
Security Standards

The business and societal transformation project (B&STP) of a modern business and global environment needs a well-designed holistic global security management system (HGSMS) that, in turn, depends on measurable success factors; these factors are used for the evolution of the transformation process. During the last decade, due to the global insecurity and financial crisis, the security strategies were not efficient. That is mainly due to the fact that businesses depend on security standards, law, cyber and information technology evolution, enterprise architecture, business engineering, and multilevel interoperability. They are restricted to blindfolded infrastructure security operations and/or martial like legal cases. Major B&STPs are brutally wrecked by various security violations that may cause a no-go decision. Most of such security misfits are used for internal politics, while highly important issues and teams' problems are simply ignored.

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