THESIS

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Chapter 1 General Introduction

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This thesis presents the findings of this research focusing on the methodology for modelling and animating networks of agents. The methodology has also been used to develop a prototype that is described in detail in Chapter 5. The overall aim of this research has been to carry out an investigation into the area of enterprise modelling and to produce a methodology for modelling and animating enterprises. Finally it provides the means of assessing the impact of changes on a network caused by animation or movement. In the following sections the chapter provides an overview of enterprise models with particular emphasis to dependency modelling as it is mostly related with thesis, and explains what their aims are and what they target. 

Chapter 2 The Need for Enterprise Modeling

Since the introduction of the Internet and the realisation of its potential companies have either transformed their operations or are in the process of doing so. Some companies use the net to connect with their customers while others offer trading facilities. It has been proved that the net has along with development in I.T. and telecommunications enabled companies to lower costs across their supply chains, amend their business processes or even change their role and responsibility on a supply chain. The above technologies have boosted the number of companies engaging into electronic commerce e-business and virtual enterprising. The changing roles and responsibilities imply different input/output functions that also have an impact across a supply chain. A recent survey carried out by the economist journal [Economist 1999] showed that over 90% of businesses already have some form of presence on the web, while a large proportion is considering re-shaping, transformation, and change on their boundaries. It is not just the Internet however. Companies find it a lot easier to outsource or to develop short term relations with other businesses for mutual benefit. It becomes apparent after studying a particular market of industrial sector that companies are implementing networks of small businesses or individual all bound by the same corporate culture and communications. Once a Hollywood studio employed everyone from the leading actors to the lighting technicians. Nowadays studios assemble teams of self employed individual and independent businesses that are today’s stars and technical support. Because the roles of firms is changing we need a model to assess the impact of changing roles, relations, formation of new businesses and roles.The objective of this chapter is to define the term “enterprise model” along with all the related terms used throughout the thesis, determine what makes a successful model and why there is a need for a dynamic enterprise model. The author first attempts to define all the terms used in the thesis such as enterprise, process, dynamics etc. It has been found out during this research that there is a number of enterprise modeling definitions provided by different authors, that describe enterprise modeling in different contexts. In the following paragraphs some of these definitions are presented along with some critical analysis as to what they imply or refer to. Finally the author presents his own definition of the term, and makes the case for a dynamic model.

Chapter 3 Literature Review

The chapter reports of the wide range of modelling methodologies and products offered for enterprise modelling. Each product or methodology concentrates on different aspects of the enterprise ranging from I/O models to process modelling, product manufacturing or product/service distribution. The chapter first distinguishes between architectures, tools and methods and gives an overview of the terms associated with enterprise modelling such as business process re-engineering, enterprise engineering and ontological modelling. The overview will help the reader to distinguish between the different aspects of enterprise modelling targeted by the various methodologies and tools. Later on in the chapter I review in detail the methodologies which have been mostly Chapter 4 Dynamic Method

Chapter 4 Dynamic Enterprise Modelling

The previous chapters addressed the modelling problem in detail, and demonstrated the need for a modelling method that would be able to offer animation capabilities to an enterprise model. In a dynamic network, changes caused by internal or external factors play an important role at a tactical, operational and strategic level. This chapter outlines the steps that need to be taken in order to build such a dynamic method and discusses the relevant issues. It proposes a method for modelling relationships of dynamic networks and although the method is a four-step approach the chapter also discusses a number of issues that led to the development of each step. The methodologies have been divided into two broad categories, distinguishing between research and commercial products. Most of them are associated with business process re-engineering and the final model is static. There are however modelling techniques aiming to run scenarios and experiments that offer facilities for model animation. A general observation that could be made about static as opposed to dynamic techniques is that static techniques tend to consider a wider view of the enterprise. Dynamic techniques target specific aspects such as logistics, sales, distribution etc. Static techniques on the other hand do in fact model a wider range of aspects because dynamic techniques have not yet been developed enough. The same observation can be made for commercial products. Some of them span their scope throughout a supply chain targeting the modelling of logistics such as freight control while others target enterprise modelling aspect such as improvement of processes from an operational to strategic level.

Chapter 5 Discussion

The question that arises from the cases studies is how can the model be animated in order to reach a goal state (expressed in action a) when the goal state requires the model to be moved more than just one time. In this chapter we discuss heuristics and heuristic searches in order to show how goals (expressed in action lists) can be found when we need to animate the model more than once. Notice that in this chapter some of the heuristic or knowledge representation methods presented in the examples may not be directly related to enterprise modelling. They are however presented as a means for further research that could assist or eventually become related with the field of enterprise modelling. The ideas that have been adopted by this approach are clearly pointed out.

Chapter 6 Implementation

Some of ideas developed during this research were tested by the development of a prototype enterprise modelling system. In chapter 3 we divided enterprise models in structure, process and resource oriented types. Each of these models draws attention to different aspects of the enterprise. The following chapter provides a detailed description of a resource oriented model that was developed as part of this thesis. It allows the modeller to build a diagrammatic representation of a supply chain and identify the links between the various agents. Furthermore it provides the modeller with information regarding the link and finally provides a mechanism for assessing the impact of deleting or creating new links. The impact is calculated in terms of resources been supplied by or to the various agents.  

Chapter 7 Summary & Conclusions

In the following paragraphs we focus on the main aspects of this thesis. The reader is reminded of the definitions we gave in this thesis regarding enterprise modelling, what inspired this research and how ideas were developed. In brief we examine some of the major points of the literature review as well as the methodology developed in chapter 4. The chapter concludes with some of the ideas for further research and the contributions of this thesis to the research community.