CIMOSA - News
Editor: Martin Zelm, Gehenbuehlstr. 18A, D-70499 Stuttgart, martin.zelm@cimosa.de
The CIMOSA - News is published by the CIMOSA Association.
The CIMOSA News will report on CIMOSA applications, evolution of its technical
specification, advancements in standardisation and related items. Contributions
from other parties are welcome. The CIMOSA - News will be printed periodically
and is also available in the internet at http://www.cimosa.de.
UEML (Unified Enterprise Modelling Language), EU Project has held two more Membership meetings, as part of the project strategy to set-up an UEML thematic network. One meeting held in Berlin, on 2002-12-13 and one in Valencia on 2003-03-15, with experts from IT-Users, Consulting Companies, IT-Vendors, Research Organisations, Universities and Standardisation. The added value of these meetings for UEML has been the capture of language requirements through comprehensive interactive group sessions with comments and discussions. The comments were answered by project experts and have been incorporated in the language requirements, respectively. The last workshop, on UEML Dissemination is scheduled in Munich on 2003-05-23, as part of the agenda of the 2nd BPM Conference.
Results from the workpackages:
WP1 "State of the art" has defined a framework for characterising
current Enterprise Modelling (EM) approaches, which is used as a guideline
to support the design of the language constructs.
WP2 "Needs and requirements" has completed the first
version of language requirements, structured in categories of Identification
of user scenarios, Definition of possible UEML Solutions according to the
requirements, Definition of the relation of the requirements to the solution
area and Ranking and Harmonisation of the current requirements.
WP3 "Definition of UEML" has analysed the language requirements
defined in WP2. Further, a set of core constructs – activity, role, resource,
input/output flow etc. - has been identified from the meta models of the
tools of the project partners, together with a proposal for a development
strategy. Applying this “Strategy for UEML” and a meta-modelling approach,
has lead to the initial core language named UEML 1.0
WP4 "UEML Demonstrator Portal" has established the project
portal to present the language requirements structure and to serve
as a focal point of knowledge storage and dissemination for all reports
and documents. Further a Demonstrator for model exchange between tools
using a mock up of the UEML core constructs has been designed.
WP5 "Dissemination, evaluation and market prospects"
is setting up the UEML network through membership meetings and dissemination
workshops. Work on a Enterprise Modelling tool/market study and a UEML
tutorial is nearly completed.
For more information visit the project web site www.ueml.org
Framework for Human Resource Modelling
A Modelling Framework for Human Resource based-Business Processes has been proposed by Jorge Hermosillo Worley, et al (hermosi@enit.fr), and will be published by Kluwer Academic series ‘Applied Optimization’ (www.wkap.nl/prod/s/APOP).
The framework intends to better adapt the business processes to the human actors by explicitly taking into account concepts like the role, competence and knowledge of the human resource. The paper originally presented at the SCM’2002 Conference (see previous report) was extended in the preparation for publication. A new Chapter on the classification and implementation of roles, competences and knowledge concepts has been added which provides further details on the proposed classes of roles and competencies/skills. The role classes comprise Interpersonal, Informational, Decisional and Operational roles. The competence/skill classes comprise Technical, Organisational and decisional, Adaptation, Interpretation and formalisation and Human and motivational competences. A merge with the CIMOSA Technical Baseline is considered.
BITKOM, the Working Group Knowledge Engineering & Management held a workshop on 2003-02-05 in Wiesbaden, Germany. One focus of several presentations was the taxonomy and rating of Human Capital, deployed for instance in enterprise controlling or for decision support: How can human capital be measured, aggregated, optimised in a team and used in planning, operation control of an enterprise or in the enterprise balance sheet. A categorisation from the enterprise view point classifies Intellectual Capital into Innovative Ideas, Organisational Capital, Human Capital, and (Customer) Relational Capital. For more info see www.bitcom.org/.
OMG ‘Web Services for the Integrated Enterprise’
Workshop was held at Munich /Germany 2003-02-11/13. Web Services are on
one hand represented by implementation modelling languages with the aim
to model and execute transactions. On the other hand, Web Services are
executed on a platform - an integrating infrastructure- which contains
resources and services such as registry services, directory services, bridges
and elements from CORBA, J2EE (JAVA2 Enterprise Edition) or other execution
platforms.
The workshop addressed Web Services matching with OMGs
concept of the layered Model Driven Architecture (MDA). The MDA provides
the concepts of Platform Independent Models (PIMs) and Platform Specific
Models (PSMs). The associated modelling languages for the definition of
information centric requirements/design are UML and XML, both de facto
industry standards and as a candidate BPEL4WS. More details can be found
at www.omg.org .
The CIMOSA Association is participating in the organisation
of the CE2003 conference in Madeira by contributing two sessions in the
track on Product and Process Models for Inter- and Intra-Organisation Integration.
The two sessions are on Concepts and Application of Business Process Modelling,
respectively.
Business process models are becoming more and more important
especially in the area of inter organisational co-operation. Virtual enterprises
depend on up-to-date information and knowledge to decide on the needs for
short term collaboration and potential bottlenecks in the envisioned operation.
The papers in the two sessions cover wide area from web services, enterprise
engineering with focus on team system engineering, comparison of business
process modelling languages to concurrent car product and process design
and car engine production. An Overview about relevant standards completes
the two sessions.
ISO TC 184 SC5/WG1 has held its meeting in Naples,
Florida, USA on 2003-01-21/24. Topics were ballot review on EN ISO DIS
19439, Framework for Enterprise Modelling; Definition of an Economic View
for ISO IS 15704; and the review of a new work item proposal on interoperability
of business processes and business process models.
For the DIS 19439 the comments received from China and
the USA have been discussed and proposals for resolution have been drafted.
Final resolution to be done by CEN TC310/WG1 and the document editor.
An annex to IS 15704 will be prepared by China to describe
the needs for an economic view. In addition, a new work item proposal will
be prepared on benefits of enterprise integration taking into account the
existing standards (IS 14258, 15704, 19439 and 19440 as well as pre ENV
13550). This NP will include economic aspects as well as aspects of human
roles in the enterprise.
J.G. Nell will end his work as WG1 convenor. NIST will
be asked to nominate a new candidate.
JWG15 (IEC/SC 65A-TC 184/SC 5,) held a meeting at Nice, France, on 2003-03-24/27 with the objective to resolve the comments on Part 2 ‘Object Model Attributes’ of ISA–95.00.00–2000 'Enterprise-Control System Integration). Resolutions to some important issues: 1) UML definitions and graphical representations of will be used as far as possible.2) A more expressive way to capture the notion of time via event, ending status and duration has been introduced as attributes in the relevant object models. 3) Product and materials have been logically separated defining product as a business oriented item whereas material comprises the things processed and transformed in the enterprise. Next meeting on 2003-6-11/13 at BSI, London, UK, contact dennis_brandl@bellsouth.net.
CEN TC 310 WG1 will hold a meeting in Paris on 2003-04-24/25. Subject will be DIS 19439 on Framework for Modelling, PreEN ISO 19440 on Constructs for Enterprise Modelling. New work items are: decisional reference models and the formalisation of modelling language constructs.
The CIMOSA Association (COA) is a non-profit organisation involved in promotion of Enterprise Engineering and Integration based on CIMOSA and its active support in national, European and international standardisation. COA members are industrial and research organisations.