Towards Enterprise-Grade Tool Support for DEMO

Abstract

The Design and Engineering Methodology for Organisations (DEMO) method is a core method within the discipline of Enterprise Engineering (EE). It enables the creation of so-called essential models of organisations, which are enterprise models focusing on the organisational essence of an organisation, primarily in terms of the actor roles involved, and the business transactions between these actor roles. The DEMO method has a firm theoretical foundation. At the same time, there is an increasing uptake of DEMO in practice. With the increased uptake of DEMO also comes a growing need for enterprisegrade tool support. In this paper, we therefore report on a study concerning the selection, configuration, and extension, of an enterprise-grade tool platform to support the use of DEMO in practice. The selection process resulted in the selection of Sparx Enterprise Architect for further experimentation in terms of configuration towards DEMO. The configuration of this tool framework to support DEMO modelling, also provided feedback on the consistency and completeness of the DEMO Specification Language (DEMOSL), the specification language that accompanies the DEMO method.

Evolving the DEMO Specification Language

“…The resulting specification is divided into four kinds of models, and four associated meta-models. These four model kinds need to comply with the requirements as stated in [10]. The required meta-models for the tooling have been iterated to specifically fulfil the following three requirements (see [10]):…”

“…In applying the design science research approach, the development of the DEMOSL is rooted in the existing EE and DEMO body of knowledge (enabling rigour ), while allowing for the iterative improvement and refinement of the artefact in terms of experiments and cases (enabling relevance). The latter involve(d) experiments in terms of the implementation of DEMOSL in an enterprise-grade tool environment [10], as well as the application in real-world cases.…”

“…Based on the meta-model of the second iteration artefact, a tool was created [10], which has been used in practice to model organisations. In doing so, all missing modelling elements have been added to the model and to the tool and used in successive cases.…”

“…The DEMOSL, as discussed in this paper, involves a further elaboration and refinement of the earlier version reported in [9]. The elaboration and refinements are, amongst others, based on experiences with the establishment of an integrated tool environment which supports the creation and management of DEMO related models [10].…”