Domain-Specific Modelling Languages (DSMLs) offer constructs that are tailored to better capture the representational needs of an application domain. They provide customized graphical notations, which facilitate understanding of models by domain experts. As a result, DSMLs allow the construction of domain-specific models that support collaboration, improve work processes and enhance decision-making. Given their special purpose, however, a DSML has to be built each time a new application domain is to be addressed, which is quite demanding and time-consuming. A valid alternative is the creation of DSMLs through domain-specific adaptations of existing modelling languages. This solution has the benefits of starting from a baseline of well-known concepts, which is adapted to fit a specific purpose. Current engineering processes for building or adapting modelling languages, however, lack agility. It follows a sequential engineering lifecycle, where modelling and evaluation activities cannot start before the DSML is deployed for use. Such a sequential approach tends to keep the language engineer separate from the domain expert, who is hindered from gaining experience from the DSML until it is created. The separation of the two roles is a threat to the high quality of the DSML as it requires the joint effort of both experts. On the other hand, the new requirements that arise from the suggestions of the domain expert have to go through the whole engineering lifecycle (i.e. capture and document the requirement, conceptualise, implement and deploy), which is time-consuming. These current drawbacks of present engineering processes have been explored in two case studies, which report the development of a DSML for Patient Transferal Management and a DSML for Business Process as a Service. In this research an agile meta-modelling approach has been conceived to address the identified drawbacks. Specifically, the approach allows the quick interleaving of language engineering, modelling and evaluation activities. Hence, the close cooperation between the language engineers and the domain experts is fostered from an early stage. A set of operators are proposed to enable on-the-fly domain-specific adaptations of modelling languages, thus avoiding the sequential engineering phases. This agile meta-modelling aims to promote both the high-quality and quick development of DSMLs through domain-specific adaptations. Moreover, to avoid misinterpretation of the meaning of the newly created modelling constructs as well as ensuring machine interpretability of models, the agile meta-modelling has been supplemented by an ontology-aided approach. The latter embeds the specification specifications of modelling languages into an ontology. A set of semantic rules are proposed to support the propagation of language adaptations from the graphical to the machine-interpretable representation. In turn, the approach was developed in the modelling environment AOAME, which allows preserving consistency between the graphical and the machine-interpretable knowledge while domain-specific adaptations are performed. An evaluation strategy is proposed, from which three criteria were derived to evaluate the approach. Firstly, the correct design of the approach is evaluated by the extent to which it satisfies the requirements. Secondly, the operationability of the approach is evaluated by its ability to preserve consistency between the graphical and the machine-interpretable representations. Thirdly, the generality of the approach is evaluated by its ability to be applied in different application domains. The evaluation of operationability and generality are supported by implementing real-world use cases in AOAME. Consequently, the approach contributes to the practice in three different application domains, the Patient Transferal Management, Business Process as a Service and Innovation Processes. The scientific contribution of the approach spans research fields of Domain-Specific Modelling Language, Meta-Modelling, Enterprise Modelling and Ontologies. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Informatics / PhD (Information Systems) / Unrestricted

People around the world who are working in companies and organisations need to collaborate, and in their collaboration use information managed by different information systems. The requirements of information systems to be interoperable are therefore apparant. While the technical problems, of communicating or sharing information between different information systems, have become less difficult to solve, the attention has turned to other aspects of interoperability. Such aspects concern the bussiness processes, the knowledge, the syntax and the semantics that involves the information managed by information systems. Enterprise modelling is widely used to achieve integration solutions within enterprises and is a research area both for the integration wihin an enterprise (company or organisation) and the integration between several different enterprises. Enterprise modelling takes into account several of the aspects, mentioned as important for interoperability, in the models that are created. This thesis describes a research which has resulted in the connector view concept. The main contribution with this framework comprises a model structure and an approach, for performing the modelling of the collaboration between several partners in an extended enterprise. The purpose of the enterprise models thus created, by using the connector view concept, is to find solutions to interoperability problems, that exist in the collaboration between several enterprises.

As a result of the outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020, the world was impacted at different levels, and the health and lifestyle of Chinese people were affected as a result. This was a serious challenge for the retail industry in China. Although many industries have resumed work since April 2020, the impact of the pandemic still remains, and retailers of all sizes are looking for a reasonable response to reduce their losses.This thesis uses a self-owned small coating retailer in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, asthe case study, and obtains the information needed for modelling through interviews and documents. The modelling approaches chosen for this thesis include Business Model Canvas(BMC) and Business Process Model Notation (BPMN). These two modelling approaches provide an intuitive way to read the information for the study. The SWOT analysis was then used to analyze the effects of the measures taken by the retailer in both short- and long-termperiods. Combined with the firm modelling, this thesis summarizes the measures taken by the case retailer in both periods. In the short term, the case retailer further reduces its own logistics costs with the aid of flexible working hours. In the long term, the case retailer expanded its business horizontally, transforming its business model of selling a single product into a business model of bundled sales of products plus services. This business model weakened the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain in terms of piling up goods and reducing th ecustomer base.

Much of industry is seeking scope economies, but this requires more complex and flexible product realisation. Modelling technologies have potential to support the life cycle engineering of both Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) manufacturing systems. However when companies operate in dynamic environments it is not sufficient to model manufacturing systems in isolation. Rather a holistic modelling methodology is needed which can create structural and behavioural models of dependencies between the manufacturing systems, and the business and engineering environments in which they operate; so that a suitable balance between economies of scope and scale can be achieved. This thesis describes the conception and development of a step wised Extended Modelling Methodology (EMM) which facilitates reasoning, and related decision making, about EoSS manufacturing systems. The EMM was conceived from exploratory research in two SMEs, following which it was applied and case tested in a large manufacturing company. Little academic attention to date has been paid to theorising about the link between ‘Economies of Scope and Scale (EoSS) phenomenon' and ‘manufacturing systems design'. Hence many questions about EoSS manufacturing remain unanswered, such as: (1) academic communities need to know what EoSS actually means and how state-of-the-art modelling can support qualitative and quantitative analysis of EoSS system phenomenon; and (2) industry needs to know how they can benefit from EoSS, what attended costs they might incur, and what best balance between scope and scale economies can be achieved. With these general requirements in mind the thesis reports on the conception and industrial application of the EMM. This has: (A) developed new ideas about EoSS, which can be used to characterise EoSS phenomenon; (B) introduced a new way of visualising architectural aspects of EoSS at multiple-levels of abstraction; and (C) with reference to case studies has illustrated the use of multi-level modelling to enable predictions to be made about EoSS benefits and costs.

Business goals of manufacturing systems are typically in a state of constant change and greater rates of change are predicted in the future. Whereas contemporary approaches to the design and construction of these systems often results in inflexible enterprises that cannot readily be tuned to changing business goals. This study has specified and prototyped the use of a new model-driven approach to the design and (re)configuration of"change capable" manufacturing cells. Manufacturing cells represent a typical domain of manufacturing systems in which the existence of inflexible links between tasks and resources can result in sub-optimal performance and an inability to cope with change. The approach is based on a) the use of a semi-generic model of manufacturing cells, that structures and targets the use of CIMOSA modelling constructs (as implemented by the SEWOSA tool) towards producing a requirements specification and conceptual design in the form of a graphical and computer executable model of a particular manufacturing cell, and b) the complementary use of new computer executable modelling constructs and tools, that structure and support the detailed design and runtime operation of a particular cell in the form of an explicit, model-based configuration of cell resources and software components that realise the control processes required in a particular cell. Part of the semi-generic model comprises descriptions of common tasks found in a given domain of manufacturing cells. That part of the model has been captured and formalised by using CIMOSA modelling constructs. A new development of this modelling structure allows pre- modelled tasks to be selected, detailed and organised and suitable resources and reusable control system components (or building blocks) assigned to groups of tasks. Thereby this new approached to designing and building manufacturing cells can facilitate rapid and effective design and reconfiguration of manufacturing cell control systems. General information requirements found during the modelling and real world application of target cells, have also been formally defined and are met by using a suitable modelling structure and specially developed tools. Furthermore, the research has shown how modelled sets of software component building blocks can be specified and implemented as modular, reusable elements of manufacturing cell control systems. New modelling structures have been conceived and fonnalised and examples of their use evaluated under laboratory conditions. The research has also deployed and developed pre-existing enterprise modelling concepts and integration tools, including CIMOSA, STEP, EXPRESS, CIMBIOSYS infrastructure services and component-based software design concepts. This has enable the creation of a prototype tool-set that demonstrates how the concepts can be beneficially applied. The main contributions made by this research are that: a) It proposes and develops an approach to the design of manufacturing cell systems that successfully bridges a previous gap between top-down modelling concepts, methods and tools (that typically support formal modelling of system requirements, tasks and resources) and bottom-up detailed design and build techniques that lead to the operation, control and monitoring of real cells, b) It provides a modelling and implementation structure that 'integrates' the use of a classical enterprise modelling approach (namely CIMOSA), design primarily to support the designers of manufacturing systems, to the emerging component-based design and build concepts, that are becoming popular with software and system vendors.

Darbe analizuojamas metaduomenų saugyklų kūrimas pritaikant veiklos modeliavimo metodo metamodelį. Apžvelgtos metaduomenų saugyklų ir veiklos modeliavimo metodų bei notacijų BPMN, ARIS, GRAI tinklo, UEML savybės, jų pritaikymo metaduomenų saugykloms projektuoti galimybės. Atrinktas tinkamiausias veiklos modeliavimo metodas ARIS, kuris apima daugiausiai organizacijos veiklos aspektų. Sukurta metaduomenų saugykla panaudojant ARIS veiklos modeliavimo metodo metamodelį, kuri pritaikyta įmonės UAB „Klaipėdos Konteinerių Terminalas“ duomenų srautams valdyti ir integruota su įmonės naudojama informacine sistema. Šios saugyklos pagalba metaduomenys, išgauti iš įvairių įmonės dokumentų, suskirstomi pagal skirtingus veiklos aspektus: darbo vietas, veiklos funkcijas, padalinius. Išnagrinėtas metaduomenų saugyklų kūrimas UEML, GRAI tinklo, BPMN metamodelių pagrindu bei jų savybės ir palygintos su ARIS metodo metamodelio pagrindu sukurtos metaduomenų saugyklos savybėmis. Nustatyta, kad veiklos modeliavimo metodo ARIS taikymas leidžia sukurti metaduomenų saugyklą, apimančią daugiau įmonės veiklos aspektų. Tai leidžia geriau identifikuoti įmonės duomenų pokyčius ir vietą veiklos valdymo procese. / This paper analyses creation of a metadata repository by implementing the meta-model of enterprise modelling methods and notations. It encompasses overviews of metadata repository qualities of UEML, ARIS, GRAI Grid, BPMN enterprise modelling methods and notations and their application in designing metadata repositories. ARIS method was selected as the most suitable enterprise modelling method because it encompasses the largest number of aspects of the enterprise activity. Employing this method meta-model, a metadata repository was created and integrated with the informational system of the company UAB „Klaipėdos Konteinerių Terminalas“ for more efficient management of the company’s data flows. With the help of this metadata repository data extracted from various company’s documents is grouped according to different aspects of the company’s activity: workplaces, departments, job functions, etc. The paper investigates creation of metadata repositories on the basis of UEML, GRAI Grid and BPMN meta-models and compares their qualities with those of a metadata repository created on the basis of ARIS meta-model. It has been established that application of ARIS enterprise modelling method enables to create a metadata repository encompassing more aspects of the enterprise’s activity. It allows to better identify changes in the enterprise’s documents and their place in the activity management process.

Enterprise modelling can facilitate the design, analysis, control and construction of contemporary enterprises which can compete in world-wide Product markets. This research involves a systematic study of enterprise modelling with a particular focus on resource modelling in support of the life cycle engineering of enterprise systems. This led to the specification and design of a framework for resource modelling. This framework was conceived to: classify resource types; identify the different functions that resource modelling can support, with respect to different life phases of enterprise systems; clarify the relationship between resource models and other modelling perspectives provide mechanisms which link resource models and other types of models; identify guidelines for the capture of information - on resources, leading to the establishment of a set of resource reference models. The author also designed and implemented a resource modelling tool which conforms to the principles laid down by the framework. This tool realises important aspects of the resource modeffing concepts so defined. Furthermore, two case studies have been carried out. One models a metal cutting environment, and the other is based on an electronics industry problem area. In this way, the feasibility of concepts embodied in the framework and the design of the resource modelling tool has been tested and evaluated. Following a literature survey and preliminary investigation, the CIMOSA enterprise modelling and integration methodology was adopted and extended within this research. Here the resource modelling tool was built by extending SEWOSA (System Engineering Workbench for Open System Architecture) and utilising the CIMBIOSYS (CINI-Building Integrated Open SYStems) integrating infrastructure. The main contributions of the research are that: a framework for resource modelling has been established; means and mechanisms have been proposed, implemented and tested which link and coordinate different modelling perspectives into an unified enterprise model; the mechanisms and resource models generated by this research support each Pfe phase of systems engineering projects and demonstrate benefits by increasing the degree to which the derivation process among models is automated.

Dans le contexte économique actuel, les petites entreprises qui se développent sont confrontées à des problématiques d’organisation et de système d’information. C’est tout naturellement que ces entreprises considèrent la mise en oeuvre d’une solution ERP comme une véritable opportunité de se structurer, d’appliquer les bonnes pratiques de gestion et de disposer d’un outil de pilotage qui lui permettrait de soutenir sa stratégie. La complexité de ces projets réside dans le lien étroit existant entre l’organisation et le système d’information. Pour mener à bien ce projet d’entreprise, les petites entreprises se doivent de disposer d’outils pour les accompagner dans l’étude de leur organisation et la sélection d’un ERP. Pour cela, nous proposons dans cette thèse une contribution qui s’appuie sur la modélisation d’entreprise. Notre contribution se décompose en deux parties. Tout d’abord, nous élaborons une méthodologie de modélisation dans laquelle nous proposons un cadre de modélisation, un jeu de modèles et une démarche de modélisation. Ensuite nous proposons une démarche détaillée qui permet de guider étape par étape l’entreprise dans l’étude de l’organisation et de sélection de son futur ERP. Cette démarche s’appuie sur les modèles sélectionnés et élaborés dans la méthodologie de modélisation proposée. Ce travail a été réalisé en immersion, dans le contexte d’une petite entreprise afin d’être confronté au quotidien aux problématiques de ces entreprise et d’adopter une démarche de recherche / action qui nous permet de proposer une contribution très appliquée ainsi que de la valider avec la conduite d’un projet ERP concret. / In today's economic environment, growing small companies face a number of challenges in terms of their organization and information system. Such companies naturally see adopting an ERP solution as an opportunity to structure their business, apply good management practices, and acquire a management tool they can use to support their strategy. A company's organizational structure and information system are closely related, which makes finding the right ERP solution a complex process. To be successful in taking this step, small companies need effective tools to help them study their organization and choose a well-suited ERP system. In this thesis, we offer input on this process based on enterprise modelling. Our proposed "tools" are presented in two parts. First, we develop a modelling methodology, setting out a modelling framework, a set of models, and a modelling approach. We then present a detailed step-by-step approach which guides the company through the process of studying their organization and choosing their future ERP. This approach is based on the models selected and developed in the proposed modelling methodology. We prepared this thesis in immersion in a small company, which gave us daily insight into the challenges faced by such companies, and allowed us to take a highly applied research and action approach and validate our findings in the context of a concrete ERP project.

Whilst the amount of information readily available to workers in information- and knowledge intensive business- and industrial contexts only seem to increase with every day, those workers still have difficulties in finding relevant and needed information as well as storing, distributing, and aggregating such information. Yet, whilst there exist numerous technical, organisational, and practical approaches to remedy the situation, the problems seem to prevail. This publication describes the first part of the author’s work on defining a methodology for improving the flow of work related information, with respect to the information demand of individuals and organisations. After a prefatory description of the perceived problems concerning information flow in modern organisations, a number of initial conjectures regarding information demand and use in small-scale business contexts are defined based on a literature study. With this as the starting point the author sets out to, through an empirical investigation performed in three different Swedish organisations during 2005, identify how individuals within organisations in general, and these three in particular, use information with respect to such organisational aspects as roles, tasks, and resources as well as spatio-temporal aspects. The results from the investigation are then used to validate the conjectures and to draw a number of conclusions on which both a definition of information demand, as well as the initial steps towards defining a methodology for information demand analysis, are based. Lastly, a short discussion of the applicability of the results in continued work is presented together with a description of such planned work.

<p>Whilst the amount of information readily available to workers in information- and knowledge intensive business- and industrial contexts only seem to increase with every day, those workers still have difficulties in finding relevant and needed information as well as storing, distributing, and aggregating such information. Yet, whilst there exist numerous technical, organisational, and practical approaches to remedy the situation, the problems seem to prevail.</p><p>This publication describes the first part of the author’s work on defining a methodology for improving the flow of work related information, with respect to the information demand of individuals and organisations. After a prefatory description of the perceived problems concerning information flow in modern organisations, a number of initial conjectures regarding information demand and use in small-scale business contexts are defined based on a literature study. With this as the starting point the author sets out to, through an empirical investigation performed in three different Swedish organisations during 2005, identify how individuals within organisations in general, and these three in particular, use information with respect to such organisational aspects as roles, tasks, and resources as well as spatio-temporal aspects. The results from the investigation are then used to validate the conjectures and to draw a number of conclusions on which both a definition of information demand, as well as the initial steps towards defining a methodology for information demand analysis, are based. Lastly, a short discussion of the applicability of the results in continued work is presented together with a description of such planned work.</p>