Using the Business Ontology and Enterprise Standards to Transform Three Leading Organizations

1. A Discussion On The Theory Applied

We understand that case studies are a good way to learn from the knowledge gained and the experiences had by others. This is not a new phenomenon or concept; it is the basic reason of why so many organizations want their employees to work together, collaborate, and create the right circumstances for them to share knowledge. We have found that people not only learned more, but also gained the ability to apply some of these practices within their own organizations. It is also out of that reason we take the time to document the journey discussed in this paper. Although the time needed to document and compare these experiences and concepts can be daunting task in itself, we publish this case story to share our experiences using the business ontology in combination with various enterprise standards. We will therefore first describe the theory and concepts used from the Business Ontology, and then list the standards that we used.

From the Business Ontology developed by the Global University Alliance (GUA), we both used:

• •

  The business ontology meta objects. (von Rosing & Laurier, 2015; von Rosing & von Scheel, 2016)

• •

  The clearly defined definitions in terms of the existing taxonomy (von Rosing & Laurier, 2015; von Rosing & von Scheel, 2016)

• •

  The semantic relationships of the meta objects and thereby the meta models (von Rosing & Laurier, 2015)

• •

  Working in layers (von Rosing & von Scheel, 2015)

• •

  Association between meta objects and layers (von Rosing & von Scheel, 2016)

• •

  Relationships between meta objects and artefacts i.e. models (von Rosing & Laurier, 2015; von Rosing, Urquhart, & Zachman, 2015)

To ensure that we have a common understanding and the right way of thinking across the three organizations discussed in this paper, we used the following publications:

• 1.

  An Introduction to the Business Ontology (von Rosing & Laurier, 2015)

• 2.

  Using the Business Ontology to develop Enterprise Standards (von Rosing & von Scheel, 2016).

• 3.

  The Value of Ontology (von Rosing, Laurier & Polovina, 2015)

• 4.

  Using a Business Ontology for Structuring Artefacts: Example - Northern Health” (von Rosing, Urquhart & Zachman, 2015).

• 5.

  Using the Business Ontology to develop a Role Ontology (von Rosing and Zachman, 2016).

• 6.

  The relationship between Ontology and Modelling concepts: Example Role Oriented Modelling (Hove, von Scheel, Arzumanyan, Zachman, 2016).

• 7.

  Applying Ontology and Standards for Strategy focused execution: Example SAL Heavylift (Okpurughre, von Rosing, & Grube, 2016).

• 8.

  Applying Ontology and Standards to develop Smart Applications: Example Dutch Railway (Bach, von Rosing, & von Scheel, 2016).