A generic business modelling framework for integrating organisational, social and information systems concepts

Designing contemporary information systems is a process aimed at the efficient integration of people, technologies and procedures. Organisational and social implications of a (re)designed system need to be addressed at an early stages of development. The work presented here provides a general and flexible business model specification environment, the BMSA (Business Modelling System Architect) framework, which can be used in conjunction with various methods that deal with enterprise requirements analysis in a pluralistic and integrated fashion. The BMSA approach is founded on three basic premises - (a) organisational modelling and work design, (b) modelling the business process and (c) automated tool support. These issues are bound together by a set of design principles. The BMSA conceptual foundation is based on the UML notation. This allows interfacing with other development methods and tools. The supporting tool comprises of the following systems - the Repository System, the User Interface System and the Picture View System. At the heart of the tool is the Repository. The proposed framework is flexible in terms of standardisation, independence, reuse and future expandability of models.