Advanced Information Systems Engineering

A better development process-in fact, a process unifying the best practices now available-is the key to the software future. The proven Unified Process originally developed by Ivar Jacobson, now incorporating the work of Grady Booch, Jim Rumbaugh, Philippe Kruchten, Walker Royce, and other people inside Rational, answers this long-felt need. Component and object based, the Unified Process enables reuse. Usecase driven, it closes the gap between what the user needs and what the developer does, it drives the development process. Architecture centric, it guides the development process. Iterative and incremental, it manages risk. Represented in the design blueprints of the newly standardized Unified Modeling Language (UML), it communicates your results to a wide audience. M. Jarke, A. Oberweis (Eds.): CAiSE’99, LNCS 1626, pp. 1–1, 1999. c © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999 M. Jarke, A. Oberweis (Eds.): CAiSE’99, LNCS 1626, pp. 2-9, 1999. a Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999 From Business Process Model to Application System Developing an Information System with the House of Business Engineering (HOBE) August-Wilhelm Scheer, Michael Hoffmann Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik (IWi) an der Universität des Saarlandes Im Stadtwald, Geb. 14.1, 66123 Saarbrücken {scheer, hoffmann}@iwi.uni-sb.de Abstract. Organizational concepts, like virtual enterprises or profit centers in companies, are ordering new functionality on information systems. Enterprises have to customize their business processes in very short periods because of stronger competition and globalization. Concepts like electronic commerce and supply chain management need a permanent optimization of the business processes along the supply chain. The generating of individual software and model based customizing of ERP-packages offer potentials for more flexibility supporting business processes with information systems. This paper shows a concept for describing and implementing business processes and a software development project using this concept. Organizational concepts, like virtual enterprises or profit centers in companies, are ordering new functionality on information systems. Enterprises have to customize their business processes in very short periods because of stronger competition and globalization. Concepts like electronic commerce and supply chain management need a permanent optimization of the business processes along the supply chain. The generating of individual software and model based customizing of ERP-packages offer potentials for more flexibility supporting business processes with information systems. This paper shows a concept for describing and implementing business processes and a software development project using this concept. 1 Flexible Information Systems for Mobile Enterprises Organizational concepts, like virtual enterprises or profit centers in companies, are ordering new functionality on information systems. The networks between many organizational units in a company and between companies need more flexibility in implementing and customizing information systems. In the past, information systems had been customized on the basis of organizational structures and business processes once and then not been altered again over a period of many years. Nowadays, enterprises have to customize the business processes in very short periods because of stronger competition and globalization. Concepts like electronic commerce and supply chain management demand a permanent optimization of the business processes along the supply chain. Companies selling enterprise resource planning packages have realized the necessity to deliver tools reducing the time and the costs spent in implementing and customizing their software products. Many enterprises expect more flexibility from generating their individual software products on the basis of semantic models and software components working together in a framework. A change of the semantic models automatically takes effect on the configuration of the information system. With ARIS – House of Business Engineering, chapter 2 introduces a concept for describing business processes from semantic models to implementation. Chapter 3 shows the development of software applications using the HOBE-concept. In chapter 4 future trends are presented. From Business Process Model to Application System 3 2 ARIS House of Business Engineering (HOBE) ARIS House of Business Engineering is an integrated concept describing and executing business processes. Furthermore, it is a framework for developing real application software. The next chapters explain the meaning of the different levels shown in Fig. 1. IV. Process Application III. Process Workflow I. Process Design reference models, knowledge management II. Process Planning and Control database simulation quality assurance controlling, benchmarking components, business objects, object libraries standard software bu ild ti m e co nf ig ur at io n time and capacity management Executive Information System Continuous Process Improvement