Keywords: Conceptual Modeling, Enterprise Modeling, Systems analysis and design
Astract: The Exploring Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Development (EMMSAD) conference series organized 29 events from 1996 to 2024, associated with Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering. In 2009, EMMSAD became a two-day working conference. Since 2017, the authors of EMMSAD’s best papers are invited to submit extended versions of their paper, for consideration to be published in the Journal of Software and Systems Modeling. The main topics of the EMMSAD series focus on models and modeling methods for the analysis and development of software information systems of any kind. These are organized into five tracks: (1) Foundations of Modeling and Method Engineering; (2) Enterprise, Business, Process, and Capability Modeling; (3) Information Systems and Requirements Modeling; (4) Domain-Specific and Knowledge Modeling; and (5) Evaluation of Models and Modeling Approaches. The aims, topics, and history of EMMSAD can be also found on its website at http://www.emmsad.org/.

Keywords: DEMO, Enterprise modeling, Enterprise ontology, Low-code, MDSD, Mendix
Astract: Due to hyper-competition, technological advancements, regulatory changes, etc, the conditions under which enterprises need to thrive become increasingly turbulent. Consequently, enterprise agility increasingly determines an enterprise’s chances for success. As software development often is a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility, enterprise agility and software adaptability become increasingly intertwined. As a consequence, decisions that regard flexibility should not be left to software developers alone. By taking a Model-driven Software Development (MDSD) approach, starting from DEMO ontological enterprise models and explicit (enterprise) implementation design decisions, the aim of this research is to bridge the gap from enterprise agility to software adaptability, in such a way that software development is no longer a limiting factor in achieving enterprise agility. Low-code technology is a growing market trend that builds on MDSD concepts and claims to offer a high degree of software adaptability. Therefore, as a first step to show the potential benefits to use DEMO ontological enterprise models as a base for MDSD, this research shows the design of a mapping from DEMO models to Mendix for the (automated) creation of a low-code application that also intrinsically accommodates run-time implementation design decisions.

Keywords: Abstract syntax, DSL, EMF, Graphical concrete syntax, M3B, MDSE, Metamodeling, Model transformation, MSDKVS, Sirius
Astract: Many powerful metamodeling platforms enabling model-driven software engineering (MDSE) exist, each with its strengths, weaknesses, functionalities, programming language(s), and developer community. Platform interoperability would enable users to exploit their mutual benefits. Such interoperability would allow the transformation of metamodels and models created in one platform into equivalent metamodels and models in other platforms. Language engineers could then freely choose the metamodeling platform without risking a lock-in effect. Two well-documented and publicly available metamodeling platforms are the eclipse modeling framework (EMF) and the modeling SDK for visual studio (MSDKVS). In this paper, we propose an M3-level-bridge (M3B) that establishes interoperability between EMF and MSDKVS on the abstract syntax level and on the graphical concrete syntax level. To establish such interoperability we (i) compare the two platforms, (ii) present a conceptual mapping between them, and (iii) implement a bidirectional transformation bridge including both the metamodel and model layer. We evaluate our approach by transforming a collection of publicly available metamodels and automatically generated or manually created models thereof. The transformation outcomes are then used to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the transformation’s validity, executability, and expressiveness.

Keywords: Architecture, Domain model, Enterprise architecture, Enterprise architecture model, Enterprise architecture modeling, Model quality, Ontology
Astract: Models have long since been used, in different shapes and forms, to understand, communicate about, and (re)shape, the world around us; including many different social, economic, biological, chemical, physical, and digital aspects. This is also the case in the context of enterprise architecture (EA), where we see a wide range of models in many different shapes and forms being used as well. Researchers in EA modeling usually introduce their own lexicon, and perspective of what a model actually is, while accepting (often implicitly) the accompanying ontological commitments. Similarly, practitioners of EA modeling implicitly also commit to (different) ontologies, resulting in models that have an uncertain ontological standing. This is because, for the subject domain of enterprise architecture models (as opposed to the content of such models), no single ontology has gained major traction. As a result, studies into aspects of enterprise architecture models, such as “model quality” and “return on modeling effort”, are fragmented, and cannot readily be compared or combined. This paper proposes a comprehensive applied ontology, specifically geared to enterprise architecture modeling. Ontologies represent structured knowledge about a particular subject domain. It allows for study into, and reasoning about, that subject domain. Our ontology is derived from a theory of modeling, while clarifying concepts such as “enterprise architecture model”, and introduces novel concepts such as “model audience” and “model objective”. Furthermore, the relevant interrelations between these different concepts are identified and defined. The resulting ontology for enterprise architecture models is represented in OntoUML, and shown to be consistent with the foundational ontology for modeling, Unified Foundational Ontology.

Keywords: Conventional tunneling, Drill and blast, BIM, IFC, Construction phase, Digitalization
Astract: Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become the key technology for the digital transformation of the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), as an open and vendor-neutral data model, play an essential role in this transformation. Despite all the recent advances of BIM, tunneling needs to catch up with other AEC sectors adopting digital technologies. Currently, IFC is mainly used to capture information directly connected to the structural elements of the final tunnel but rarely as a means to document the tunnel excavation and support. This article proposes an IFC-driven process for the execution phase of conventional tunneling projects by extending the usage of IFC to information about the process, labor, equipment, and employed material. The proposed process is evaluated by a case study demonstrating how to represent data from a conventional tunneling project by IFC. The results show that IFC provides the necessary concepts to express the data of the execution phase of conventional tunneling projects. Implementing an IFC-driven process in this phase significantly contributes to the digital transformation of tunneling projects.

Keywords: Circular economy, Digital thread, Digital twins, Sustainability, Systems engineering
Astract: The perception of the value and propriety of modern engineered systems is changing. In addition to their functional and extra-functional properties, nowadays’ systems are also evaluated by their sustainability properties. The next generation of systems will be characterized by an overall elevated sustainability—including their post-life, driven by efficient value retention mechanisms. Current systems engineering practices fall short of supporting these ambitions and need to be revised appropriately. In this paper, we introduce the concept of circular systems engineering, a novel paradigm for systems sustainability, and define two principles to successfully implement it: end-to-end sustainability and bipartite sustainability. We outline typical organizational evolution patterns that lead to the implementation and adoption of circularity principles, and outline key challenges and research opportunities.

Keywords: BIM (Building Information Modeling), IFC (Industry Foundation Classes)

Keywords: agile BPM, BPM, Business Process Management, Social BPM
Astract: Business Process Management (BPM) takes care of the business process (BP) lifecycle using different technologies in organizations to provide value-added services or products for end-users. Although today’s fast-changing business world poses vast variants of business processes (BPs) alongside uncertainty. This situation requires an agile BPM to manage, maintain, and execute different variants of a BP as well as deal with uncertainties and changes. One of the emphasises of agile BPM is involving stakeholders in the BP lifecycle, which requires a standard approach for all stakeholders to have quick and efficient access to the BP lifecycle to prevent problems like cultural resistance. In order to reach a standard approach, social BPM is an emerging concept that can help the easy and efficient involvement of stakeholders in the BP lifecycle. By inspiring form social BPM, this paper propose a new social media-based BPM platform to deal with different varieties of BP and uncertainties by integrating stakeholders in the BP lifecycle. While the platform eases communication, information exchange, and decision-making among stakeholders; it also eliminates the exchange between design-time and run-time while a change occurs by merging design-time and run-time.

Keywords: Agile BPM, Agility, AI agent, Business Process Management, Social BPM
Astract: Business Process Management (BPM) faces increasing societal and business challenges. Societal issues include effectively managing unexpected changes and ensuring employee engagement during process modifications. The former category involves the limitations of technology when introducing process changes while Agile BPM and Social BPM concepts have been explored in previous studies to tackle the latter. These investigations have resulted in the development of a Social-Media (SM) based BPM platform and an agility framework. The SM platform draws inspiration from popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Its primary objective is to merge the design-time and run-time phases of the business process (BP) lifecycle as well as to actively engage stakeholders in the dynamic design and implementation of BPs. By simplifying the response to potential changes and maintaining stakeholder involvement throughout the process, the platform addresses the aforementioned challenges. This article establishes a correlation between SM platform concepts and BPM concepts, emphasizing how they facilitate the concurrent design and execution of BPs. Furthermore, the article demonstrates the application of the SM platform in implementing the agility framework through a use case analysis involving a scientific paper submission process. To overcome the current emphasis on stakeholder involvement and human capabilities in applying the platform, we finally explore the possibilities of employing AI agents as automated assistants.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Cloud platform, Conceptual modeling, Knowledge graph, Model transformation, Model-driven engineering
Astract: Semantic processing of conceptual models is a focus of research for several years, bridging the disciplines of knowledge-based systems, conceptual modeling, and model-driven software engineering. With Knowledge Graphs, this research area gained momentum. In this paper, we introduce CM2KGcloud, a generic and extensible Web-based platform for transforming conceptual models into Knowledge Graphs. The platform can work on models created by state-of-the-art metamodeling platforms (e.g., EMF, Papyrus, ADOxx) and transforms models created with them into standardized Knowledge Graph representations like GraphML, RDF, and OWL. CM2KGcloud can be used as a service and can be integrated into software systems by its exposed API.