Authors:
Jonathan Spruytte
1
;
Marlies Van der Wee
1
;
S. Verbrugge
2
and
D. Colle
2
Affiliations:
1
Department of Information Technology, Ghent University – iMinds, iGent-Toren, Belgium
;
2
Ghent University – IMEC – IBBT, Belgium
Keyword(s):
Techno-economic, Equipment Cost Modelling, ECMN, Process Cost Modelling, Business Process, BPMN.
Abstract:
Modelling both business processes and equipment costs is an elementary step in the techno-economic
evaluation of a business case (infrastructure project, network deployment, etc.). Most of a upfront business
case evaluation, on which strategic decisions are based, relies on inflexible and error-prone spreadsheet
models. In order to provide a stable and reliable alternative, this paper presents the equipment coupling
modelling notation (ECMN). ECMN allows calculating the costs for equipment installation using dynamic,
easy-to-understand, graphical equipment trees. For business processes, we developed an adapted version of
the business process modelling notation (BPMN). In order to simplify the usage of both ECMN and BPMN,
we also present the BEMES-tool (Business Modelling and Simulation). BEMES is a graphical web-based tool
that can be used to draw both models using drag-and-drop and calculate the models resulting in visual output.
The BEMES-tool consists of a set of interlinked modul
es; we describe the functionality of each of these
modules and discuss the benefits this strong modularized approach yields for both the current and future
features.
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