[ontac-forum] Enterprise Model categories and ontology

["Gary Berg-Cross" <gary.berg-cross@xxxxxxxx>]

I'm a few days behind on the messages, but Roy mentioned building an ontology for a" purposeful endeavor, i.e., an "enterprise", to ask and answer questions in a manner that would be understood by all others within the enterprise and/or its external environment."  This is kindred to my earlier suggestion that an ontology as a model needs to have a purpose to focus the effort and I have a few observations on the topic

 

 

Rou provided some definitions for things like Enterprise = a purposeful endeavor = a mission (regardless of number of participants, budget, physical dispersal, etc.

 

and a set of basic questions usually showed up using their natural name (time, space, etc.) in forms and reports, or were more typically re-labeled as shown in the 7 categories below.

1. Location
2. Organization
3. Organization Unit
4. Function
5. Process
6. Resource
7. Requirement   

He then proposed that the seven sets of basic question categories form the root classes of his generalized ontology.

I think it relevant to mention the experience with Enterprise Ontologies such as TOVE going back a dozen years or so.  Mike Gunninger participated in the frist meeting so he might have much more to say, but a simple observation is that Enterprise Ontologies have developed quite a bit more specfics including the important relations between makor areas and enterprise elements. 

The following, for example,  is a list of the terms defined in the Enterprise Ontology developed by the AI Applications Institute at the University of Edinburgh with partners: IBM, Lloyd's Register, Logica UK Limited, and Unilever.  It includes a Strategy area and Time, which was also modeled in TOVE. 

 

The central concept of the Strategy section is Purpose. Purpose captures the idea either of something which a PLAN can HELP ACHIEVE or that an ORGANISATION UNIT can be responsible for.

 

Activity	Activity Specification, Execute, Executed Activity Specification, T-Begin, T-End, Pre-Conditions, Effect, Doer, Sub-Activity, Authority, Activity Owner, Event, Plan, Sub-Plan, Planning, Process Specification, Capability, Skill, Resource, Resource Allocation, Resource Substitute.
Organization	Person, Machine, Corporation, Partnership, Partner, Legal Entity, Organisational Unit, Manage, Delegate, Management Link, Legal Ownership, Non-Legal Ownership, Ownership, Owner, Asset, Stakeholder, Employment Contract, Share, Share Holder.
Strategy	Purpose, Hold Purpose, Intended Purpose, Strategic Purpose, Objective, vision, Mission, Goal, Help Achieve, Strategy, Strategic Planning, Strategic Action, Decision, Assumption, Critical Assumption, Non-Critical Assumption, Influence Factor, Critical Influence Factor, Non-Critical Influence Factor, Critical Success Factor, Risk.
Marketing	Sale, Potential Sale, For Sale, Sale Offer, Vendor, Actual Customer, Potential Customer, Customer, Reseller, Product, Asking Price, Sale Price, Market, Segmentation Variable, Market Segment, Market Research, Brand Image, Feature, Need, Market Need, Promotion, Competitor.
Time	Time Line, Time Interval, Time Point.

The point is that we should build on prior work and also go beyond simple categories to models with structured relations.  As Eric mention some of these topics has been previously discussed in the SUO forum.  Some of it is older than that.  Lattice hierarchies were mentioned several times and Roy mentioned some thimgs such as a set of relations that seemd to me to not being the state of the art of thinking about these things.

 

Below is the hierarchy lattice of ontologies from a 1994 KIF library. Each ontology defined a set of formal terms ande  an ontology at one level includes those ontologies that it are indented under it.  This just illustrates that some of these issues have been discussed before and we should make sure we aren't wasting time by starting at immature points.

 

    Kif-Sets
       Kif-Extensions
          Frame-Ontology
             Jat-Generic
                Job-Assignment-Task
             Basic-Matrix-Algebra
                Tensor-Quantities
                   3d-Tensor-Quantities
                      Simple-Geometry
                         Mechanical-Components
                            Mace-Domain
             Abstract-Algebra
                Physical-Quantities
                   Standard-Dimensions
                      Vt-Design
                         Vt-Domain
                            Vt-Example
                      Unary-Scalar-Functions
                         Mace-Domain
                         Cml
                            Thermal-System
                            Dme-Cml
                               Thermal-System
                      Standard-Units
                      Simple-Geometry ...
                   Scalar-Quantities
                      Vt-Design ...
                      Unary-Scalar-Functions ...
                      Tensor-Quantities ...
                   Quantity-Spaces
                      Simple-Geometry ...
             Parametric-Constraints
                Components-With-Constraints
                   Vt-Design ...
                   Mace-Domain
             Component-Assemblies
                Mechanical-Components ...
                Components-With-Constraints ...
                Dme-Cml ...
             Bibliographic-Data
             Slot-Constraint-Sugar
                Bibliographic-Data
       Kif-Meta
          Parametric-Constraints ...
       Kif-Relations
          Frame-Ontology ...
          Kif-Extensions ...
    Kif-Numbers
       Kif-Extensions ...
       Kif-Lists
          Kif-Extensions ...
          Kif-Meta ...
          Kif-Relations ...
    User-Theory

 

 Gary Berg-Cross

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