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Business Informatics Group, TU Wien

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5th Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Model-Driven Engineering (MDE 2023)

Lola BurgueñoDominik BorkJessie Galasso-CarbonnelManuel Wimmer

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191915; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-12-22; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Model-Driven Engineering
Astract: Model-driven engineering (MDE) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have gained momentum in recent years, and the fusion of techniques and tools in the two domains paves the way for several applications. Such integrations—which we call MDE Intelligence—are bidirectional, i.e., MDE activities can benefit from the integration of AI ideas and, in return, AI can benefit from the automation and subject-matter-expert integration offered by MDE. The 5th edition of the Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Model-driven Engineering (MDE Intelligence), held in conjunction with the IEEE/ACM 26th International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2023), follows up on the success of the previous four editions, and provides a forum to discuss, study, and explore the opportunities offered and the challenges raised by integrating AI and MDE.

Burgueño, L., Bork, D., Galasso-Carbonnel, J., & Wimmer, M. (2023). 5th Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Model-Driven Engineering (MDE 2023). In 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems Companion (MODELS-C) (pp. 559–561). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/MODELS-C59198.2023.00093

Digital Enterprises : Service-Focused, Digitally-Powered, Data-Fueled

Henderik ProperBas van GilsKazem Haki

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191626; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-12-01; Type: Publication; Subtype: Book;

Keywords: Digital Transformation, Enterprise Engineering, Enteprise Modelling
Astract: Ever since the Industrial Revolution, change has often been driven by the introduction of new technology. It seems that the organization that is best at leveraging technology wins in the marketplace—meaning that keeping up (or even ahead) of developments has become a crucial capability for modern organizations. The word leveraging is emphasized to stress the fact that technology is not a differentiator per se. Only when it is used successfully does it have any effect. Some claim that the people factor is actually key (Kane et al., 2019). The plethora of changes that the digital transformation has brought about, and the many more that we are not even aware of yet or have not even been thought of yet, provides organizations with deep and fundamental challenges. How to excel as an enterprise, while everything is changing constantly? There are hardly any securities left; traditional business models are continuously challenged by digitally inspired and empowered startups. The creation of this book was triggered by three, mutually amplifying, fundamental trends driving enterprises to change: the transition to the digital age, the emergence of service ecosystems, and the growing role of data as a key underlying resource. As a result of these trends, modern-day enterprises are confronted with several challenges. These challenges impact the “design” of these enterprises, from the definitions of products and services offered to their clients, via the business processes that deliver these products and services and the information systems that support these processes, to the underlying IT infrastructure. When using the term enterprise, we specifically do not only refer to commercial businesses, but rather more broadly to any purposeful undertaking by a socio-technical system. This indeed includes commercial businesses, but also includes government agencies, NGOs, factories, mobility networks, logistics networks, etc. The aim of this book is, therefore, to explore different relevant aspects in more detail while at the same time also providing concrete suggestions for enterprises to meet the resulting challenges. In line with this, this book brings together contributions covering four key perspectives: 1. Experience reports on how enterprises deal with these trends in practice 2. The need for a new design logic 3. The consequences for architectural coordination of the needed transformations 4. The ensuing consequences for enterprise modeling Each of these perspectives will be covered in a separate part of this book, containing stand-alone parts with contributions by several authors. Each of the parts contains a concluding chapter reflecting on the key insights provided by the different contributions.

Proper, H., van Gils, B., & Haki, K. (Eds.). (2023). Digital Enterprises : Service-Focused, Digitally-Powered, Data-Fueled. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30214-5

The AI-Enabled Enterprise

Vinay KulkarniSreedhar ReddyTony ClarkHenderik Proper

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191648; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-12-01; Type: Publication; Subtype: Book;

Keywords: AI, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Modelling
Astract: A future enterprise will be a complex ecosystem (or system of systems) that operates in a dynamic uncertain environment. It will need to continue delivering the stated goals while dealing with unforeseen changes along multiple dimensions such as events opening up new opportunities or constraining the existing ones, competitor actions, regulatory regime, law of the land and technology advance/obsolescence. Customers increasingly demand highly personalized services and user experiences that can change depending on market trends. The goals that drive the operation of an enterprise can change over time. Businesses are increasingly regulated. Given the increased dynamics, existing regulations will keep changing frequently, and new regulations will get introduced at a faster rate. Responsive compliance management with minimal exposure to risk will therefore be a universal key requirement that will be felt increasingly acutely across business domains. Increasingly, enterprises are pledging to the sustainable development goals proposed by the UN. Quite a few domains are witnessing stiff competition from new entrants such as FinTech companies in banking. Enterprises need to significantly reduce the costs to continue to be viable in the face of this technology-centric agile competition. Moreover, as the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed, enterprises need to be prepared to quickly adapt in the face of black swan events.

Kulkarni, V., Reddy, S., Clark, T., & Proper, H. (2023). The AI-Enabled Enterprise. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29053-4

Next-Generation Enterprise Modeling

Bas van GilsHenderik ProperHenderik ProperBas van GilsKazem Haki

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191647; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-12-01; Type: Publication; Subtype: Book Contribution;

Keywords: Enterprise Modelling
Astract: In the Western world, digital has become the new normal, both in our daily lives and at our work. Additionally, Western countries have seen a transition from a goods-oriented economy to a services-oriented economy. Whereas, in the recent past, it was already the case that change was the only constant, these intertwined, and mutually amplifying, trends even further increase the pace of change. As a result, enterprises are confronted with a need to transform (continuously) accordingly. During any enterprise transformation, coordination among the key stakeholders and the projects that drive the transformations is essential. A shared understanding, agreement, and commitment are needed on (1) what the overall mission/vision of the enterprise is, (2) the current affairs of the enterprise and any ongoing changes, (3) the current affairs of the context of the enterprise, and (4) what (given the latter) the ideal future affairs of the enterprise are. Models, and ultimately enterprise (architecture) modeling languages and framework, are generally considered as an effective way to support such (informed) coordination. In the past, different frameworks and languages have been developed to this end, including the ArchiMate language. The latter has evolved to become a widely accepted industry standard. The objective of this chapter is threefold: (1) we intend to illustrate some of the key challenges which the digital transformation, and the two intertwined trends that drive it, puts on enterprise (architecture) modeling languages, (2) assess to what extent ArchiMate meets these challenges, and (3) draft the outline of a next-generation enterprise (architecture) modeling language (framework) that may be more suited to meet the challenges of these trends.

Gils, B. van, & Proper, H. A. (2023). Next-Generation Enterprise Modeling. In H. Proper, B. van Gils, & K. Haki (Eds.), Digital Enterprises : Service-Focused, Digitally-Powered, Data-Fueled (pp. 279–305). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30214-5_21

EA ModelSet – A FAIR Dataset for Machine Learning in Enterprise Modeling

Philipp-Lorenz GlaserEmanuel SallingerDominik BorkJoao Paulo A. AlmeidaMonika Kaczmarek-HeßAgnes KoschmiderHenderik Proper

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191926; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-11-25; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Data set, Enterprise architecture, Enterprise modeling, FAIR, Machine learning
Astract: The conceptual modeling community and its subdivisions of enterprise modeling are increasingly investigating the potentials of applying artificial intelligence, in particular machine learning (ML), to tasks like model creation, model analysis, and model processing. A prerequisite—and currently a limiting factor for the community—to conduct research involving ML is the scarcity of openly available models of adequate quality and quantity. With the paper at hand, we aim to tackle this limitation by introducing an EA ModelSet, i.e., a curated and FAIR repository of enterprise architecture models that can be used by the community. We report on our efforts in building this data set and elaborate on the possibilities of conducting ML-based modeling research with it. We hope this paper sparks a community effort toward the development of a FAIR, large model set that enables ML research with conceptual models.

Glaser, P.-L., Sallinger, E., & Bork, D. (2023). EA ModelSet – A FAIR Dataset for Machine Learning in Enterprise Modeling. In J. P. A. Almeida, M. Kaczmarek-Heß, A. Koschmider, & H. Proper (Eds.), The Practice of Enterprise Modeling : 16th IFIP Working Conference, PoEM 2023, Vienna, Austria, November 28 – December 1, 2023, Proceedings (pp. 19–36). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48583-1_2

A Vision for Flexible GLSP-Based Web Modeling Tools

Dominik BorkPhilip LangerTobias OrtmayrJoao Paulo A. AlmeidaMonika Kaczmarek-HeßAgnes KoschmiderHenderik Proper

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191918; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-11-25; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Deployment, Flexibility, GLSP, Language Server Protocol, LSP, Modeling tool, Tool development, Web modeling
Astract: In the past decade, the modeling community has produced many feature-rich modeling editors and tool prototypes not only for modeling standards but particularly also for many domain-specific languages. More recently, however, web-based modeling tools have started to become increasingly popular in the industry for visualizing and editing models adhering to such languages. This new generation of modeling tools is built with web technologies and offers much more flexibility when it comes to their user experience, accessibility, reuse, and deployment options. One of the technologies behind this new generation of tools is the Graphical Language Server Platform (GLSP), an open-source client-server framework hosted under the Eclipse foundation, which allows tool developers to build modern diagram editors for modeling tools that run in the browser or can be easily integrated into IDEs such as Eclipse, VS Code, or Theia. In this paper, we describe our vision for more flexible modeling tools which is based on our experiences from developing several traditional and web-based modeling tools in an industrial and academic context. With that, we aim at sparking a new line of research and innovation in the modeling community for modeling tool development practices and to explore opportunities, advantages, and limitations of web-based modeling tools, as well as bridge the gap between scientific tool prototypes and industrial tools being used in practice.

Bork, D., Langer, P., & Ortmayr, T. (2023). A Vision for Flexible GLSP-Based Web Modeling Tools. In J. P. A. Almeida, M. Kaczmarek-Heß, A. Koschmider, & H. Proper (Eds.), The Practice of Enterprise Modeling : 16th IFIP Working Conference, PoEM 2023, Vienna, Austria, November 28 – December 1, 2023, Proceedings (pp. 109–124). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48583-1_7

How Inclusive Is Conceptual Modeling? A Systematic Review of Literature and Tools for Disability-Aware Conceptual Modeling

Aylin SarioğluHaydar MetinDominik BorkJoao Paulo A. AlmeidaJosé BorbinhaGiancarlo GuizzardiSebastian LinkJelena Zdravkovic

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191932; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-10-29; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Accessibility, Conceptual Modeling, Disability, Modeling tools, Systematic Literature Review, Tool Review
Astract: The reports on Disability by the World Health Organization show that the number of people with disabilities is increasing. Consequently, accessibility should play an essential role in information systems engineering research. While software and web engineering research acknowledge this need by providing, e.g., web accessibility guidelines and testing frameworks, we show in this paper, based on a systematic review of the literature and current modeling tools, that accessibility is, so far, a blind spot in conceptual modeling research. With the paper at hand, we aim to identify current research gaps and delineate a vision toward more inclusive, i.e., disability-aware conceptual modeling. One key finding relates to a gap in research and tool support concerning physical disabilities. Based on these results, we further present the first modeling tool that can be used keyboard-only, thereby including users with physical disabilities to engage in conceptual modeling.

Sarioğlu, A., Metin, H., & Bork, D. (2023). How Inclusive Is Conceptual Modeling? A Systematic Review of Literature and Tools for Disability-Aware Conceptual Modeling. In J. P. A. Almeida, J. Borbinha, G. Guizzardi, S. Link, & J. Zdravkovic (Eds.), Conceptual Modeling : 42nd International Conference, ER 2023, Lisbon, Portugal, November 6–9, 2023, Proceedings (pp. 65–83). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47262-6_4

A Generic and Customizable Genetic Algorithms-Based Conceptual Model Modularization Framework

Syed Juned AliJan Michael LaranjoDominik BorkHenderik ProperLuise PufahlDimka KarastoyanovaMarten van SinderenJoao Moreira

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191769; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-10-20; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Generic Framework, Genetic Algorithm, Modularization
Astract: Conceptual models need to be comprehensible and maintainable by humans to exploit their full value in faithfully representing a subject domain. Modularization, i.e. breaking down the monolithic model into smaller, comprehensible chunks has proven very valuable to maintain this value even for very large models. The quality of modularization however often depends on application-specific requirements, the domain, and the modeling language. A well-defined generic modularizing framework applicable to different modeling languages and requirements is lacking. In this paper, we present a customizable and generic multi-objective conceptual models modularization framework. The multi-objective aspect supports addressing heterogeneous requirements while the framework’s genericity supports modularization for arbitrary modeling languages and its customizability is provided by adopting the modularization configuration up to the level of using user-defined heuristics. Our approach applies genetic algorithms to search for a set of optimal solutions. In this paper, we present the details of our Generic Genetic Modularization Framework with a case study to show i) the feasibility of our approach by modularizing models from multiple modeling languages, ii) the customizability by using different objectives for the modularization quality, and, finally, iii) a comparative performance evaluation of our approach on a dataset of ER and ECore models.

Ali, S. J., Laranjo, J. M., & Bork, D. (2023). A Generic and Customizable Genetic Algorithms-Based Conceptual Model Modularization Framework. In H. Proper, L. Pufahl, D. Karastoyanova, M. van Sinderen, & J. Moreira (Eds.), Enterprise Design, Operations, and Computing : 27th International Conference, EDOC 2023, Groningen, The Netherlands, October 30 – November 3, 2023, Proceedings (pp. 39–57). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46587-1_3

An extended taxonomy of advanced information visualization and interaction in conceptual modeling

Dominik BorkGiuliano De Carlo

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Handle: 20.500.12708/191921; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-09-01; Type: Publication; Subtype: Article; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Conceptual modeling, Human–computer interaction, Information visualization, Modeling tools, Notation, Taxonomy
Astract: Conceptual modeling is integral to computer science research and is widely adopted in industrial practices, e.g., business process and enterprise architecture management. Providing adequate and usable modeling tools is necessary to adopt modeling languages efficiently. Meta-modeling platforms provide a rich and mature set of functionalities for realizing state-of-the-art modeling tools. These tools, albeit their stability and rich set of features, often lack a modern look and feel considering (i) how they visualize the models, and (ii) how modelers interact with the models. Current web technologies enable much richer, advanced opportunities for visualizing and interacting with conceptual models. However, a structured and comprehensive overview of possible information visualization and interaction techniques linked to conceptual models and modeling tools must be established. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting an extended taxonomy of advanced information visualization and interaction in conceptual modeling. We present a generic taxonomy that is afterward contextualized within the specific domain of conceptual modeling. The taxonomy serves orientation in the vast developing field of information visualization and interaction and hopefully sparks innovation if future modeling tool development.

Bork, D., & De Carlo, G. (2023). An extended taxonomy of advanced information visualization and interaction in conceptual modeling. DATA & KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING, 147, Article 102209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.datak.2023.102209

Digitalization in the Construction Industry: The Case of Documentation and Invoicing in Tunneling

Oleksandr MelnykMarco HuymajerChristian HuemerRobert Galler

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Handle: 20.500.12708/187880; Year: 2023; Issued On: 2023-07-25; Type: Publication; Subtype: Inproceedings; Peer Reviewed:

Keywords: Digital transformation, Documentation, Production, Tunneling, Software, Time measurement, Recording
Astract: The digitalization of Architecture, Engineering, & Construction (AEC), specifically the tunneling sector, often lags behind other sectors. Today's invoicing process of tunneling projects frequently involves many manual and paper-based tasks, which are error-prone and time-consuming. Accordingly, replacing this with a fully digital process, from the tunnel face to the project owner, bears high economic potential. This article proposes an integrated digital documentation system for tunnel construction management and invoicing. A month-long case study with data from a real-life construction site is conducted to test the system's suitability. The managed data are exported to commonly used enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for invoicing and compared to actual invoicing data. The case study has shown that the proposed approach is practical and helped streamline and improve the construction documentation processes in conventional tunnel construction. The proposed solution represents an incremental contribution to the digital transformation of the AEC sector.

Melnyk, O., Huymajer, M., Huemer, C., & Galler, R. (2023). Digitalization in the Construction Industry: The Case of Documentation and Invoicing in Tunneling. In 2023 IEEE 25th Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) (pp. 1–10). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI58679.2023.10187588