Ontological Analysis of Integrated Process Models: testing hypotheses

Abstract

Integrated process modeling is achieving prominence in helping to document and manage business administration and IT processes in organizations. The ARIS framework is a popular example for a framework of integrated process modeling not least because it underlies the 800 or more reference models embedded in the world's most popular ERP package, SAP R/3. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) representation model for evaluating modeling grammars such as those constituting ARIS. It reports some initial insights gained from pilot testing Green and Rosemann's (2000) evaluative propositions. Even when considering all five views of ARIS, modelers have problems representing business rules, the scope and boundary of systems, and decomposing models. However, even though it is completely ontologically redundant, users still find the function view useful in modeling.