Hi Gary:
1. Thanks for the very useful feedback.
I greatly appreciate it. I’ll address your points immediately below
and in [] inline with your preceding text.
2. For those seeking further reference, TOVE
is the Toronto Virtual Enterprise project, presented at http://www.eil.utoronto.ca/enterprise-modelling/index.html.
It identifies the following as its foundational and business ontologies
(with my corresponding general ontology (GO) terms in []:
- Foundational Ontologies
[GO Enterprise
Root Taxonomies]
- Business Ontologies
3. Conversely, the TOVE, when arrayed in
[] against the GO is shown below:
Enterprise Reference Model
- Enterprise
Reference Catalogs (i.e., Taxonomies consisting of subject classes,
subclasses, and instances) (See attached Slide35)
- Location
Catalog
- Organization
Catalog [TOVE Organization]
- OrganizationUnit
Catalog
- Function
Catalog. See attached Slide183 for representation of Executive,
Production, and Support functions.
- Process
Catalog [TOVE Activity and Activity-Based Costing]
- Resource
Catalog [TOVE Resources and Products]
- Requirement
(Mission)
Catalog [TOVE Requirements and Activity-Based Costing]
- Enterprise
Relation Types (Categories of space, time, energy, matter, intelligence (see
Slide42) relations stated as verbs and verb phrases)
- Category
Relations (including the above Reference Catalogs and other
categorization relations across catalogs, “is a” type relations)
- Containment
Relations (a subject has components or is contained, subject composition
and distribution, “has a” type relations)
- Sequence
Relations (Predecessor/successor, value-chain, dependencies, transitions,
migrations, evolution, revolution, cause and effect)
- Change
Relations (subject was x in the past, may be y in the future)
- Variant
Relations (subject is based-on/derived-from z, subject is the basis for
w)
- Equivalence
Relations (subject is, is equal to, is partially x)
- Reference
Relations (subject refers to y)
- Enterprise
Value Chain Roles (See attached Slide14)
- Customer
- Supplier
- Authority
- Partner
- Internal
- Outsource
- Public
The relations between classes and
instances in the Reference Catalogs (i.e., GO root taxonomies) are defined
using the Relation Types, with the semantic networks formed across subject concepts/taxonomies
yielding the “ontology” of each subject within the GO, or of the ‘enterprise-as-subject”
in the aggregate. See attached Slide36.
4. So the GO and
TOVE partially agree, with the divergence based on vantage point and
experience. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve researched many
such projects, and consider them to be subsets of the GO.
The vantage point
I’m using is that of viewing the enterprise as a single thing/object
within an environment containing other enterprises to which it relates through individual
value-chains aggregated into what I call an enterprise’s value-lattice. So
I’m looking at the enterprise as holistically as I can envision, from the
outside in. Also, the GO is intended to be an operational/executable
ontology, with its populated structures and applied methods providing a
comprehensive knowledge-base for the concurrent strategic management spiral
life cycle of all enterprise operations (e.g., functional operations in support
of enterprise mission).
My experiences in
this goes back to 1982-1985 when I conceived of this approach in graduate
school (MS, Systems Management) where I used the concept “enterprise as
system”, and later “enterprise as object” as my major
research theme on managing an enterprise as a whole. At the same time, I
was the Assistant Resource Manager of a 16000 person Army organization that was
required to re-justify itself (i.e., mission, structure, assets,
functions, processes) to its authorities for the first time in over seven years
after having grown beyond its approved levels in response to NATO defense
requirements. My duties encompassed modeling and justifying the warfighting
and peacetime organizational structure, staffing, equipment, facilities,
services, personnel/skillsets, budget, etc., of the Command based on its
mission and supporting functions. I succeeded at this 1982-1987 re-justification,
re-organization, re-equiping, and IT planning and implementation project, due
largely to my GO methods, data structure, and tools.
From my above
referenced experience in developing and using the GO over the past 23 years, I
would submit that GO is not immature, but is actually a relatively mature
ontology. I do not submit that GO is a technically correct ontology,
because the specification of what makes a technically correct ontology was not
available when the GO came into form, and is still evolving. Our COSMO
group can perhaps help with this GO maturation by challenging its technical
weaknesses.
5. In the
meantime, note that TOVE has an excellent methodology for creating ontologies (http://www.eil.utoronto.ca/enterprise-modelling/entmethod/index.html and shown immediately below),
which I believe the GO can satisfy, and which I believe we should use for
COSMO, along with other ontology methodologies such as the “relations”
methodology suggest to me by Barry Smith.
TOVE Enterprise Modelling
Methodology
- “Define a set of Motivating Scenarios
- Define a set of Informal Competency Questions
that the ontology must answers in order to support the motivating
scenarios
- Using First-Order Logic, define the Terminology
of the ontology
- Formally redefine the Competency Questions using
the terminology and first-order logic
- Define the semantics and constraints on the
terminology using first-order logic “
I also believe
that the GO can satisfy the four levels of “knowledge provenance”
identified in the TOVE knowledge management research program (http://www.eil.utoronto.ca/km/index.html)
Note that the GO
approach leverages such ISO standards as ISO 14258 (Concepts and Rules for Enterprise Models)
and ISO 15704 (Requirements
for enterprise-reference architectures and methodologies),
and because GO implementations would typically include detailed process
knowledge/information/data can be used to support such process maturity efforts
as CMMI, CMM, ISO 9000.2000, etc.
From:
ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gary Berg-Cross
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005
5:25 PM
To: ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ontac-forum] Enterprise
Model categories and ontology
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.
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. [The various published enterprise ontology projects, as well as
the enterprise modeling and enterprise reference architecture and methodology
projects (e.g., PERA) should also be considered.] 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. [GO has some specifics, illustrated in the
attached Slide48. Note that the diagram in Slide48 has been cited as
representing a possible foundation for a future form of the OMB FEA. From
a GO perspective, specifics and variants are provided by GO-included projects/initiatives/Frameworks
like TOVE, PERA, Zachman, FEA, DoDAF, and TOGAF, and standards like those illustrated
in the attached Slide184]
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. [The central concept of the GO is “endeavor”,
equivalent to purpose.] Purpose captures the idea either of
something which a PLAN can HELP ACHIEVE or that an ORGANISATION UNIT [Same as GO
OrganizationUnit] can be responsible for. [The GO has a
a “strategic management process” supported by an “Intelligence
Management Process”, shown at Slide45, which includes “plan”
and related concepts in the following list. Note that “Marketing”
below would be included as a “function” in the GO Function Catalog,
categorized as a production function. An interesting exercise to help validate
GO as a candidate for the COSMO would include mapping the items below to their
corresponding item in the GO metaschema, methodology, and possible technology.]
|
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 [I submit that the GO is significantly-prior work, preceding many
other published ontology efforts by several years in most cases.]and also go beyond simple categories to models with structured
relations. [I submit that the GO
is more that just categories, as shown by this response.] 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. [That remains to be seen,
and perhaps validated by this COSMO effort. I have been observing and
tracking this “art” for quite a while, and have yet to see anything
that encompasses the capabilities offered by the GO, while GO does encompass,
but not necessarily cite, everything I’ve see to date.]
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 (http://logic.stanford.edu/kif/dpans.html)
represents a very technical and specific Knowledge Interchange Format, and it
is quite feasible to consider documenting GO and COSMO in KIF, OWL, and other
ontology formats. However, since in the past my intent for GO was to
support enterprise/endeavor management in general, formal ontological
documentation was not a priority.]
|
Slide14.JPG
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Slide35.JPG
Description: Slide35.JPG
Slide36.JPG
Description: Slide36.JPG
Slide48.JPG
Description: Slide48.JPG
Slide42.JPG
Description: Slide42.JPG
Slide184.JPG
Description: Slide184.JPG
Slide45.JPG
Description: Slide45.JPG
Slide183.JPG
Description: Slide183.JPG
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