Aconfigurablereferencemodellinglanguage.pdfVIP

ARTICLE IN PRESS Information Systems 32 (2007) 1–23 /locate/infosys A configurable reference modelling language $, $$ M. Rosemanna,, W.M.P. van der Aalsta,b aFaculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology, 126 Margaret Street, Brisbane Qld 4000, Australia bFaculty of Technology and Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, NL-5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Received 3 October 2003; received in revised form 7 April 2005; accepted 13 May 2005 Abstract Enterprise Systems (ES) are comprehensive off-the-shelf packages that have to be configured to suit the requirements of an organization. Most ES solutions provide reference models that describe the functionality and structure of the system. However, these models do not capture the potential configuration alternatives. This paper discusses the shortcomings of current reference modelling languages using Event-Driven Process Chains (EPCs) as an example. We propose Configurable EPCs (C-EPCs) as an extended reference modelling language which allows capturing the core configuration patterns. A formalization of this language as well as examples for typical configurations are provided. A program of further research including the identification of a comprehensive list of configuration patterns, deriving possible notations for reference model configurations and testing the quality of these proposed extensions in experiments and focus groups is presented. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Reference model; Enterprise systems; Configuration; Event-Driven Process Chains 1. Introduction