Business process oriented information management: conceptual models at work

ABSTRACT

The reorganization of function-oriented, hierachically structured firms into interacting business process networks of functional islands integrated by flow of material and information is a major challenge for a company that wants to meet the steadily changing business demands of today. As information has become an important production resource during the last decades, the reorganization of information management has to accompany organizational restructuring. In this paper we propose a partially decentralized and business process oriented information management approach for quality management processes. We will describe how conceptual modeling of those processes supports the information system design within this approach. Staring from a presentation of the developed architecture, we will describe our experiences with several information access and engineering mechanisms that make use of the defined conceptual models.

REFERENCES

• 1: M. Abramovici and S. Bickelmann. Engineering Data Management Systems - Requirements, State of the Art, and Potentials (in German. CIM, (5):20-28, 1993.
• 2: Y. Akao. Quality Function Deployment: Integrating Customer Requirements into Product Design. Productivity Press, Cambridge, 1990.
• 3: Y. Arens, C.Y. Chee, C.-N. Hsu, and C.A. Knoblock. Retrieving and Integrating Data from Multiple Information Sources. Int. Jour. of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, 2(2):127-158, 1993.
• 4: K. Axelsson. Realization of a decentralized IS-Strategy. In 1FiP WG8.1 Working Conference on Information Systems for Decentralized Organizations, Trondheim, Norway, 1995.
• 5: M. Bearman. Trading in Open Distributed Environments (Tutorial). In International Conference on Open Distributed Processing, 1995.
• 6: M.L. Brodie and S. Ceri. On Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems: A workshop summary. Int. Jour. on Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, l (2):249-290, 1992.
• 7: E. Brynjolfsson and H. Mendelson. Information Systems and the Organization of Modern Enterprise. Journal of Organizational Computing, 3(3):245 - 256, 1993.
• 8: D.A. Carlson and S. Ram. A Knowledge Representation for Modeling Organizational Productivity. Journal of Organizational Computing, 2(2): 155- 180, 1992.
• 9: M. Chen, Y.I. Liou, and E.S. Weber. Developing Intelligent Organizations: A Context-Based Approach to Individual and Organizational Effectiveness. Journal of Organizational Computing, 2(2):181 - 202, 1992.
• 10: Mariano P. Consens , Isabel F. Cruz , Alberto O. Mendelzon, Visualizing queries and querying visualizations, ACM SIGMOD Record, v.21 n.1, p.39-46, March 1992 [doi>10.1145/130868.130874]
• 11: R L Daft , R H Lengel, Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design, Management Science, v.32 n.5, p.554-571, May 1986 [doi>10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554]
• 12: D.K. Goldstein. Computer-Based Data and Organizational Learning: The Importance of Managers' Stories. Journal of Organizational Computing, 3(4):417 - 441, 1993.
• 13: Dieter K. Hammer, Lean Information Management: The Integrating Power of Information, Proceedings of the IFIP WG5.7 Working Conference on Integration in Production Management Systems, p.147-163, August 24-27, 1992
• 14: U. Harms. Generals and Car Manufacturers take Advantage of CALS (in German). Computer Zeitung, 26(3):21, 1995.
• 15: G. P. Huber , R. R. McDaniel, The decision-making paradigm of organizational design, Management Science, v.32 n.5, p.572-589, May 1986 [doi>10.1287/mnsc.32.5.572]
• 16: Matthias Jarke , Rainer Gallersdörfer , Manfred A. Jeusfeld , Martin Staudt , Stefan Eherer, ConceptBase—a deductive object base for meta data management, Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, v.4 n.2, p.167-192, March 1995 [doi>10.1007/BF00961873]
• 17: M. Jarke, M. Jeusfeld, and P. Szczurko. Three Aspects of Intelligent Cooperation in the Quality Life Cycle. Int. Jour. of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, 2(4):355-374, 1993.
• 18: M. Lynne Markus , Daniel Robey, Information technology and organizational change: causal structure in theory and research, Management Science, v.34 n.5, p.583-599, May 1988 [doi>10.1287/mnsc.34.5.583]
• 19: C. Menzel, R.J. Mayer, and L. K. Sanders. Representation, Information Flow, and Model Integration. In C. Petrie, editor, Enterprise Integration Modeling, pages 131 - 141, 1992.
• 20: J. Mylopoulos, T. Rose, and C. Woo. Task-Oriented Development of Intelligent Information Systems. In M. Papazolou, editor, Int. Conf. on Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, pages 206- 219, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1993.
• 21: H. J. Pels , John C. Wortmann, Integration in Production Management Systems: An Integrating Perspective, Proceedings of the IFIP WG5.7 Working Conference on Integration in Production Management Systems, p.1-12, August 24-27, 1992
• 22: P. Peters and M.A. Jeusfeld. Structuring Information Flow in Quality Management. In Int. Conf. on Data and Knowledge Systems for Manufacturing and Engineering, pages 258- 263, Hong Kong, 1994.
• 23: P. Peters, U. Loeb, and A. Rodriguez Pardo. A Task- Oriented Graphical Interface to Federated Databases. In Proc. of 3rd Int. Conf. of the int. Soc. for Decision Support Systems, Hong Kong, I995.
• 24: P. Peters and P. Szczurko. Integrating Models of Quality Management by an Object-oriented Repository. In 2nd Biennal European Joint Conf on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis, London, England, 1994.
• 25: P. Peters, P. Szczurko, M. Jarke, and M. Jeusfeld. A Federated Information System for Quality Management Processes, tn IFIP WG8.1 Working Conference on Information Systems.for Decentralized Organizations, Trondheim, Norway, 1995.
• 26: T. Pfeifer. Quality Management (in German). Carl Hanser Verlag, Muenchen, 1993.
• 27: K. Raymond. Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP): Introduction (Tutorial). In International Conference on Open Distributed Processing, 1995.
• 28: Friedrich Roithmayr , Jürgen Wendner, An empirical evidence about the connection of companies strategies and information systems strategies, Wirtschafts Informatik, v.34 n.5, p.472-480, Oct. 1992
• 29: D. Schenck. Information Modeling Language EXPRESS, ISO TCI84/SC4/WGI N291. Technical report, I988.
• 30: Michael S. Scott Morton, The 1990s research program: implications for management and the emerging organization, Decision Support Systems, v.12 n.4-5, p.251-256, Nov. 1994
• 31: N. Shaw. STEP Part 1 - overview and fundamental principles, ISO TC184/SC4/Editing Document No. N-II. Technical report, 1991.
• 32: Egbert-Jan Sol, CIM - Communication and Information in Manufacturing, Proceedings of the IFIP WG5.7 Working Conference on Integration in Production Management Systems, p.13-21, August 24-27, 1992
• 33: P. Szczurko. Integration of Distributed and Heterogenous Databases in a Federated Quality Management Architecture (in German). submitted to GI Jahrestagung, 1995.
• 34: H.-J. Wamecke. The Fractal Factory (in German). Springer-Vefiag, 1992.
• 35: C.C. Woo and F.H. Lochovsky. Knowledge Communication in Intelligent Information Systems. Int. Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems, 1 ( 1 ):203- 228, 1992.
• 36: Eric S. K. Yu , John Mylopoulos, An actor dependency model of organizational work: with application to business process reengineering, Proceedings of the conference on Organizational computing systems, p.258-268, November 01-04, 1993, Milpitas, California, United States [doi>10.1145/168555.168584]
• 37: J. Zhou. GUI to Databases - Survey and Practice. GI Datenbank Rundbrief, 13:49-51, 1994.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
      Subjects: Business

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.3 Languages

          Nouns: SQL
      H.2.4 Systems
          Subjects: Distributed databases
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Management, Theory