Domain Oriented Meta-Modelling for change
Management of Information System
Julie Chapron
1
, Xavier Boucher
1
, Patrick Burlat
1
, Pierre Lebrun
2
1
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de St Etienne, Centre G2I
158, cours Fauriel, 42023 Saint-Étienne cedex 2, France
2
ST Microelectronics – Architecture and Strategy Team
Z.I. av Olivier Perroy, 13790 Rousset, France
Abstract : This paper presents the first results of a research-partnership
between Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de St Etienne (G2I) and St-
Microelectronics (Rousset - France). We explain the results of a first stage of
research works which aim at developing a method for the management of the
evolution of information systems. Our current contribution consists in a
domain-oriented enterprise modelling approach. We justify the structure of the
meta-model proposed and we show its links with evolution management
1 Introduction
The research works presented below focus on the evolution management of the
Information System (IS) applied to a specific industrial field (the microelectronics
industry). This research is a partnership (including the PhD of J.Chapron) between the
Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne (G2I department) and the Architecture and Strategy
Team of ST-Microelectronics on the site of Rousset (France). The final aim is to
define a methodology and tools for the management of the evolution of the
information system, with the following requirements :
Transparency of the information system : the ability to provide a global,
coherent and useful model of the information system;
Models of change process: Characterization of evolution situations, risk
and impact analysis, formalization of the change process;
Decision aid tools to master reactivity facing situations of evolution, and
taking into account the specificities of the microelectronics field.
In the last 20 years, research on enterprise modelling has produced several
descriptive methods aiming at providing a methodological and operational support for
the design, the analysis and the reengineering of industrial firms : methodologies such
as PERA [10], CIMOSA [1], GRAI [6], are based on distinct meta-models
formalizing the information required for their specific enterprise models [7]. In order
Chapron J., Boucher X., Burlat P. and Lebrun P. (2004).
Domain Oriented Meta-Modelling for change Management of Information System.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination, pages 261-266
DOI: 10.5220/0002684902610266
Copyright
c
SciTePress
to integrate these approaches using their specificities in the best possible way (for
instance a focus on life cycle for PERA or on decision system for GRAI), GERAM
[7] intends to provide a global integrative framework on enterprise modelling.
Research on GERAM is linked to normalization works which lead in Europe to
standards like (ISO 14 258, ENV 40 003). After different European normative
advances [3], UEML language [8] is the last normalization work intending to develop
a unified language to support exchanges between currently existing modelling tools.
In spite of all these results, lack in enterprise modelling is still to be underlined
concerning the management of the evolution of organisational structures and of their
information systems. To fulfil such deficiency, Information System Urbanism [5]
appears as an innovative industrial approach within the information system field. It
provides the necessary structuring and basic concepts to build a real method for
change management for information systems. Urbanism aims at transforming the
information system to enable it to anticipate and to adapt to different kinds of changes
within the firm (strategic, organizational, legal…). The approach requires an
urbanistic program on the information system, including (i) the targeted information
system, (ii) urbanistic rules insuring large possibilities of evolution for the new
system, and (iii) the roadmap to reach the target system. A global methodology is
already available, due to industrial experiences. However much scientific work
remains to be done, in order to clearly formalize the concepts and methods, before
being able to build up better scientific tools aiming at the management of information
systems evolution.
This paper focuses on a first contribution to integrate the urbanism concepts into
existing methodologies for enterprise modelling. In section 2, we develop a meta-
model used to map the information system, taking into account the requirements for
evolution management and linked with urbanism principles. The section 3 presents an
application of this meta-model to the microelectronics industry.
2 Meta-model Proposal
The meta-model we elaborated puts forth two major partitions of modelling concepts.
First we justify a partition between models of processes and the models of
organisational environments : in an evolution perspective these two domains don’t
change with similar constraints and characteristics (§2.1). Thus, we specify the
interface between processes and organisational environments, with generic concepts,
independent for the operational constraints of the firm (§2.2). Secondly we explain a
partition between an information-technology oriented modelling and a domain-
oriented modelling (§2.3). This partition is namely justified by urbanism principles.
2.1 The Need to Separate Processes and Organizational Environment
Referring to CIMOSA [1] or more recently GERAM [7], we propose a conceptual
partition between functional modelling (focused on processes models), and
organizational modelling. Figure 1 highlights partition by a “business processes”
modelling view and by an “organizational environment” modelling view. Each view
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gathers various models, each of them gathering modelling objects. Here, we do not
put all the modelling objects into detail.
Domain
Oriented
Modeling
IT Oriented
Modeling
is carried out by
use 4
is perform by
has the capacity
use 2
Is composed by 1
Is composed by 3
Is composed by 2
call 2
call 1
use 3
is responsible for 3
is implement with
has the capability
use 1
is based on 2
is based on 1
is based on 3
Material Capability Model
Business Rule Model
Material Ressource Model
Organisationnal Model
Hardware Model
Architecture Model
Role model
Capacity Model
Process Map
Operational Process Model
Informationnal Process Model
Fonctionnality Model
IT process model
Enterprise
Process View
Inferface View Organizationnal
Environment View
Fig. 1. Meta-model of our approach
The “business processes” view describes all the functional aspects linked with the
processes, using different granularity levels. The central element of the view is the
informational process used to represent management and control processes requiring
informational and decisional activities (partially automated). The “organizational
environment” view gathers the various models which represent part of the
environment of the process. There are bi-directional interactions between the
processes and their environment, the former including material resources, actors, IT
resources (hardware, software, data, documents, …).
This conceptual partition will later be used for evolution management : it is
important to clearly distinguish between changes in the processes themselves and
changes in their organizational environment. For instance, a change among the firm’s
employees, in the data base structures or even in the software can be introduced
without any transformation of the process (i.e. its structure and model) in itself. Thus,
this partition between processes and environment leads to a classification of evolution
situations, but also to a better impacts analysis.
2.2 Interface View
We have just explained that the two previous views are built of several models. These
models are dependent on each other, and one of the aims of the enterprise modelling
approach is to manage these dependency links. The third “interface” view aims at
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formalizing the inter-dependencies between models of the first two views. These
inter-dependencies are formalized in a generic way, which means that they remain
valid for various versions of the organizational environment.
Thus, the « interface » view will specify the requirements of the business processes
as regards the organizational environment. For instance a “functionality model” will
specify the dependency link between an information process model and an IT
architecture model. The “functionality” model is a generic specification of IT tools
meeting the requirements of the informational process. It remains independent from
the existing IT architecture.
2.3 Partition between Domain-oriented Modelling and IT Oriented Modelling
Figure 1, shows a second conceptual partition between a “domain-oriented”
modelling and an “information-technology” oriented modelling. These two modelling
layers concern the three views presented above.
In order to manage the evolution of processes at ST Microelectronics, the partition
between these modelling layers will allow the management of a progressive
rationalization, aiming at transforming classical enterprise processes into computer
supported processes. Indeed, the Microelectronics field is a high-technological
environment with a high level of automation which never stops improving. This
induces a permanent optimization of the management and control tasks. In this
perspective, the evolution management aims at realizing a progressive encapsulation
of the enterprise processes, based on Information Technology. Thus, at the global
scale of the firm, the partition between domain-oriented modelling and IT oriented
modelling gives the possibility to measure IT deployment level among the processes
and to identify critical zones within the firm from that point of view.
Furthermore, for methodological requirements, it is necessary to figure out the
frontier between what we could call the “business” world and “information
technology” world [4], as well as their correspondence links. Indeed, several
methodologies aim at managing information system evolution using the principles of
urbanism applied to IT systems [5]. These methodologies insist on the necessity to
manage the consistence between these two “worlds” : the IT urbanization zones in the
firm must be formally related to organizational zones.
3 Meta-model Implementation on the Microelectronic Domain
This study is based on the industrial needs of ST Microelectronics. Indeed, the
microelectronics industry is characterized by fast and dramatic evolutions of products
and processes. In this section, we illustrate our approach with an existing operational
process named “control card management” from STM. The control cards are used to
test the electrical functionality of silicon wafers (on which the integrated circuits are
produced). These cards test the validity of the chip and represent an essential step in
the production process.
In fig. 2, we show a part of the application of the meta-model to the “control card
management” process. It was developed using Adonis, a tool developed by BOC
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GmbH. Adonis offers the possibility of changing its meta-model. This process occurs
in a complex environment (simplified in fig. 2) and it is characterized by its
interactions with (i) other processes and sub-processes (these interactions are
modelled in the process map), (ii) actors and organizational structure (depicted in
fig.2 by the models “Organization” and “role”) and (iii) the information technology
architecture and infrastructure (shown in fig.2 by the models “Function” and “IT
system”).
Fig. 2. Example: part of the process “Control Card Management”
This process provides an example of a situation of evolution. Indeed, at the
information system level, a study of the process has shown the importance of
implementing a workflow system to support the process which was previously
manual. A change like the implementation of a workflow will have impact on other
areas such as the database by trying to access data not yet available and interact with
other existing application. By modelling the IT infrastructure and architecture we will
be able to manage the evolution of this system and control any eventual perturbations.
The complete meta-model is currently being implemented by ST Microelectronics
in a pilot project. Of course it will with other types of changes: at a basic level, an
evolution may occur in the architecture of the database or in the structure of the data.
RoleOrganisation Process
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
M. Smith M. BlancM. DurantM. MartinM. Dupont
Device Engineer
Production controlSPCProcess controlProcess Engineer
request for change
of control card
Realisation
Technical
validation
Modification
study
Process Validation
IT systemFonction
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Data production
treatment
DB updateWorkflowWorkflowWorkflow
CAM system Control Car serverECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD
Send the
New card
Operation success
diffusion
WS test
update
Request
reception
CC BDCC server I/O Manager CC Manager
Ask card
name
VFEI driver
Eq Manager
Check the
version
RoleOrganisation Process
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
M. Smith M. BlancM. DurantM. MartinM. Dupont
Device Engineer
Production controlSPCProcess controlProcess Engineer
request for change
of control card
Realisation
Technical
validation
Modification
study
Process Validation
IT systemFonction
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Data production
treatment
DB updateWorkflowWorkflowWorkflow
CAM system Control Car serverECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD
RoleOrganisation Process
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
R
M. Smith M. BlancM. DurantM. MartinM. Dupont
Device Engineer
Production controlSPCProcess controlProcess Engineer
request for change
of control card
Realisation
Technical
validation
Modification
study
Process Validation
IT systemFonction
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
Data production
treatment
DB updateWorkflowWorkflowWorkflow
CAM system Control Car serverECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD ECNS SPC RAD
Send the
New card
Operation success
diffusion
WS test
update
Request
reception
CC BDCC server I/O Manager CC Manager
Ask card
name
VFEI driver
Eq Manager
Check the
version
265
The model allows us to analyze the quantitative and qualitative impacts of such a
change on all the processes. At the organizational level, internal restructuring are
quite frequent. The organizational models linked with the process models allows a
better management of the correspondence between the actors and the process.
4 Conclusion And Perspective
This paper focuses on how we can take into account the evolution perspective within
enterprise modelling. The first results discussed above, show a meta-model intended
to fulfill our requirements. The structure of this meta-model constitutes a first step
towards evolution management. However, as far as enterprise modelling is concerned,
additional modelling concepts are still to be formalized in the future, like evolution
events, process transformation, evolution scenario, or evolution processes…. Such
concepts will certainly be necessary to fulfill our goals [2].
Furthermore, such a meta-model provides only the first step towards evolution
management. The structure of the meta-model and the associated methodology are the
starting point that are used in order to develop further a decision aid approach for IS
evolution management. In this perspective, the meta model is currently used on a pilot
project in order to generate a chart of the enterprise (with all the necessary models)
focused on a limited pool of the firm’s processes. This data will be used to develop
two types of evolution management tools : (i) tools to define consistent processes
pools to be jointly managed within change scenarii ; (ii) tools to diagnose the impacts
and risks related to a selective change situation.
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