Business computers and internet artificial intelligence community development digital map services knowledge management research metadata software wikis usage. Hence the rea enterprise ontology links together business process modeling with the underlying economic phenomena. Ontological foundations of service science the importance of modeling the essence of enterprises on a level that abstracts. B the rea ontology encourages the use of artificial constructs, such as the many artificial constructs included in sap systems. Maintaining enterprise knowledge with a reaeo driven. Next, we analyze some difficult specification problems that relate to business process modeling in general and to rea engineering solutions to these problems in particular.
How ais can progress along with ontology research in is. A the rea ontology began as a generalized accounting model but has since developed into an enterprise ontology. Rather than general modeling techniques companies use expensive software created directly to the specific requirements of a particular enterprise. Rea is a widely accepted framework for the design of conceptual models of the accountability infrastructure of enterprise information systems. They increase the amount of represented data, while. In order from the top down, the hierarchy levels in the rea enterprise ontology are. Business functions ontology and its application in semantic business process modelling matthias born sap research 761 karlsruhe, germany, mat. The global university alliance gua is an open group of academics with the ambition to provide both business and academia with stateof the art insights. The ontology was developed in the enterprise project by the artificial intelligence applications institute at the university of edinburgh with its partners. The business ontology presented in this publication has taken the global university alliance members over a decade to research and develop, with hundreds of man years involved to create the product introduced in this paper. Positioning and formalizing the rea enterprise ontology. How do you determine the scope of a business process level rea model. The third section looks more deeply into the development of an rea model.
Chapter 5 rea enterprise ontology acct3142 cuhk studocu. In this paper we explore the use of rea for business process modeling. Resources, events, agents accounting model wikipedia. Rea resources, events, agents is a business process modeling ontology, closer to the. Use this information and your knowledge about a general business script to complete the requirements listed below. Resources, events, agents rea is a model of how an accounting system can be reengineered for the computer age. The global university alliance gua is an open group of academics with the ambition to provide both business and academia with stateoftheart insights.
For a proper alignment between the business and the it, a service perspective at the business level is needed as well. Rea as an ontological foundation of enterprise information. The purpose of this study is to analyze and develop a strong conceptual foundation of an inter enterprise accounting information system in the global environment. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Analyzing from the business process, rea modeling method regard business event as the basic unit, and standardize the flow. A region is yet another larger economic formation, and can be modeled using the rea ontology, just as any other economic formation can be modeled using the rea ontology. This is followed by a discussion of the shortcomings of traditional database applications. Rea enterprise ontology can be used to semantically relate the isoiec 15944 and umm ecollaboration standards. Ibm, lloyds register, logica uk limited, and unilever. This is achieved by automating some of the conventional software. The traditional business process models do not depict property rights, resource. Unlike all other approaches, the rea model reveals why business processes occur, and provides for full traceability of all business transactions. A business process roughly corresponds to a functional department, or a function in michael porters value chain. Mccarthy as a generalized accounting model, and contained the concepts of resources, events and agents mccarthy 1982 rea is a popular model in teaching accounting information systems ais, but it is rare in business practice.
Frederik gailly, wim laurier, and geert poels 2008 positioning and formalizing the rea enterprise ontology. Report by journal of international technology and information management. Which level of the rea ontology represents the big picture. The paper focuses on enterprise business value chain modeling as an alternative to business process modeling. Rea ontology does not use general concepts but specific. Rea as an ontological foundation of enterprise information systems. Using an mda approach, this paper introduces a new business service and resource modeling languagebsrm, based on the rea business ontology. Business service modeling for the serviceoriented enterprise. There is a separate rea model for each business process in the company. The ontology is not limited to internal enterprise activities. Geek talk computers sells computers that are assembled from parts and software which geek talk purchases from thirdparty vendors. Extensions to the pattern have already been identified and additional extensions are likely to be discovered in years to come. The resourceeventagent ontology wim laurier advisor core.
Rea model analysis and development of an interenterprise. The rea core pattern completely describes the business processes of most enterprises. Resources events agents rea ontology is a profound business modeling ontology that was. Because of its conceptual modeling heritage, rea already resembles an established ontology in many declarative. Due to its abstraction level covering the business. Most research on this topic so far takes a strict software engineering perspective. Instances of a cash entity in a business process level rea model typically are specific physical currency and coins. The purpose of rea enterprise ontology is to define constructs common to all enterprises and demonstrate how those constructs may be represented in an integrated enterprise information system. This allows to model multiple collaborations in parallel, between multiple.
Chap004 chapter 4 the rea enterprise ontology business. The rea approach to business process modeling this chapter presents a discussion of the rea approach to business process modeling. Developing a domain specific language dsl to express business policies requires modeling tools for eliciting, applying, and maintaining the knowledge of business experts. A part of business process management bpm, bp modeling has been used as an organizational tool to map out what is or asis as a baseline and to determine the future or tobe with any improvements assimilated. The most wellaccepted and used onesare e3value, resource eventagent rea, and business. Business functions ontology and its application in semantic. Rea ontology which historically originates from accounting information systems, gradually developed to cover all areas where value modeling can be utilized. Quiz for ch 4 acc 470 quiz 1 chapter 4 the rea enterprise. Well known rea methodology proposed by mccarthy and geerts is used as the basic. Using the rea ontology as a shared business collaboration ontology, business partners can create interoperability between their respective business process models without having to use the same modeling standard. Schwaiger institute of management science tu wien, vienna, austria walter.
Rea resources, events, agents is a business process modeling ontology, closer to the business reality than any other known alternative. To complete the process and carry out mi, the final product or artefact. Our object of interest is the rea ontology, because it links together business process. The resourceeventagent ontology rea is intimately related to the previous section on how ais should be designed. An ebusiness model ontology for modeling ebusiness 77 in the last section we show that it makes sense to follow three levels of research issues in e business models in order to achieve the development of a set of tools for management or is requirements engineering. For a number of years, i have expected visitors to the ebmm to click the objects in the model to discover the definitions under them. This study defines a dsl metamodel and prototype to create visual business models that conform to the resource, event, agent enterprise ontology rea eo.
Mccarthy, mainly for modeling of accounting systems. Using the rea ontology to create interoperability between e. Mccarthy as a generalized accounting model, and contained the concepts of resources, events and agents mccarthy 1982. Reabased enterprise business domain ontology construction. The resourceeventagent rea ontology developed by mccarthy, geerts and others 1 is the most prominent business ontology for accounting information systems.
Organizations use business process modeling bp modeling in order to visually document, understand, and improve their processes. Examples of business processes would be sales, purchases, conversion or manufacturing, human resources, and financing. Rea technology technology that understands your business. The paper focuses on enterprise business value chain modeling as an. Erp software has the same objective as rea ontology to store enterprise information one time, in a disaggregated format from which it can be retrieved by many different users for use in making many different types of decisions. A contract or mutual commitment event is one that commits two enterprises to. We conclude the paper with the specification of a threelayer architecture that summarizes the rea approach to business process modeling. Conceptual modeling of accounting, finance and management control walter s. Maintaining enterprise knowledge with a reaeo driven semantic wiki. Several enterprise business modeling ontologies were introducedthroughout literature and practice. Geerts and mccarthy 5, 6 established the rea business ontology. Domainspecific transformation of the rea enterprise ontology. However, it proved so useful and intuitive for better understanding of business processes that it became one of the major modeling frameworks for both traditional enterprises and ecommerce systems.
The paper addresses rea resourceeventagent domain specific ontology that is primarily focused on value modeling in business processes. The enterprise ontology is a collection of terms and definitions relevant to business enterprises. Resources, events, agents rea is a model of how an accounting system can be. Feb 01, 20 frederik gailly, wim laurier, and geert poels 2008 positioning and formalizing the rea enterprise ontology. Well known rea methodology proposed by mccarthy and geerts is used as the basic modeling framework. Introduction with the rapid developing of information technology, the relevant methods and theories of information and business modeling have also been improved greatly. Modeling the rea enterprise ontology with a domain specific.
The purpose of rea enterprise ontology is to define. Rea, originally proposed by mccarthy 1982 as a system design paradigm formalized in the entityrelationship modeling grammar, is the bestknown stream of ontology research in ais. The research presented in the paper results in a generic semantic enterprise model using rea ontology. Is this not just a special view of the rea model where agents are ignored. Pdf the paper focuses on enterprise business value chain modeling as an alternative to. Below is a description of geek talk computers, inc. Contemporary business collaborations foster enterprises to make.
C rea ontology has the same objective as enterprise systems. Exploring rea and openedi business frameworks for service. Rea enterprise ontology has been initially created by william e. Index terms business modeling, rea model, business domain ontology, owl i.