Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Value
Chain
Economic
Resource
1
1..*
Business
Process
Business
Event
Transfer
1
0..*
0..*
2..*
0..1
0..1
+target
+source
+in
+out
1..*
1..*
Economic
ResourceFlow
Economic
Resource
0..*
1
(a) Meta Model
(b) Example
Fig. 4.
Value Chain
do not refer to the stock-flows within a single duality model. Rather, they mean
that an increment in a resource as a result of one duality model will serve as a
chance to decrement this resource in a subsequent duality model. In other words,
a value chain is built by a well defined series of duality models. The transitions
between the duality models reflect the resource dependencies between the duality
models.
These general ideas are reflected in the value chain meta model of Figure 4(a).
A
value chain
is built by a number of
business processes
.A
business process
is
defined as a
transfer
or a
transformation
, and in addition the tasks needed to
execute the
transfer
/
transformation
. It follows a
business process
points to an
underlying
transfer
/
transformation
described by a
duality
model. Furthermore,
a
business process
results in a number of
business events
,twoofwhicharethe
economic events
of the underlying
duality
model.
A
value chain
includes one to
many business processes
.A
business process
is used only once in one distinctive
value chain
.A
business process
points to
exactly one
duality
model. A
duality
model is usually the basis of one business
process, but may be referred to by multiple
business processes
.A
business process
involves at least two
business events
, these are the two
economic events
(which
are considered as special kinds of
business events
). Usually, there will be more
business events
associated to a
business process
as a result of the tasks needed
to execute the
transfer
/
transformation
.
Economic resources
tie the
business processes
together. Thus, an
economic
resource flow
- which points to exactly one
economic resource
- connects two
business processes
.An
economic resource flow
is a directed association that usu-
ally starts from a source
business process
and ends at a target
business process
.
However, we also allow for
economic resource flows
that have either no source
business process
or no target
business process
. This allows for a partial analysis,
when one considers a certain
economic resource
as given or when an
economic
resource
is considered as final output of the
value chain
. Typically, cash is often
assigned to such
economic resource flows
.
