Efficient mapping rule of IDEF for UMM application

Abstract

Various methodologies for business process analysis and design have been developed by many organizations. However, these methodologies are all uniquely developed to fit each organizations in their own ways and thuds are not compatible with each other. This poor compatibility between these methodologies incurs unnecessary analysis cost. In order to reduce this analysis cost, methods to map between the different methodologies need to be developed. UMM (UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology) that has an object-oriented point of view can resolve the limits of the existing bottom-up approaches and make it more reasonable. It also simplifies the business and administrative procedures. IDEF (Integrated Definition Language) that has a structural point of view and is widely used as a system analysis and design method, needs to be mapped to UMM so that the existing IDEF models can be re-used. In this study, we present a guideline for procedures utilizing IDEF models from which the UMM models can be derived to develop an electronic commerce system that includes electronic documents exchange. By comparing IDEF and UMM, we analyze the differences between those two methodologies. Based on these differences, we propose basic strategies for mapping from IDEF to UMM. We also propose a mapping guideline which can be used to make suppositions of UMM results based on the modeling results of IDEF. The existing IDEF analysis/design results can be used to adopt UMM methodology for electronic business system. Therefore, with this, analysts who are familiar with the IDEF methodology can develop UMM work-flow by utilizing their existing results and skills. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.