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An Actor Dependency Model of Organizational Work - With Application to Business Process Reengineering

January 1995

January 1995

DOI:10.1145/168555.168584

Authors:

Eric Yu

University of Toronto

John Mylopoulos

University of Toronto

In developing information systems for use in an organization, one often needs to understand the reasons that underlie established work patterns and practices. Because organizational actors depend on each other for goals to be achieved, tasks to be performed, and resources to be furnished, reasons for work patterns can be revealed by examining the dependencies among actors. We present a model which characterizes a work organization in terms of the network of dependencies among organizational actors. Actor dependencies are taken to be intentional -- they expand or restrict an actor's ability to pursue goals. The network of actor dependencies constitutes the intentional structure of the organization. We use examples from business process reengineering to motivate and illustrate the model. KEYWORDS Organization model, organization analysis and design, business process reengineering, workflow, requirements engineering. INTRODUCTION To build effective organizational computing systems, one ...

Actor Dependency model of a goods acquisition process

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Abbreviations: pur = purchasing rec = receiving ap= accounts payable po = purchase order Figure 1: Workkow model of a goods acquisition process

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Figures - uploaded by John Mylopoulos

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by John Mylopoulos

Content may be subject to copyright.

client

pur ap

vendor

item

purchase

requisition

purchase

order

copy1

copy2

invoice

rec

notice

item

payment

rec

Abbreviations:

pur = purchasing

rec = receiving

ap= accounts payable

po = purchase order

has(item)

ordered(item)

received(item)

paid(item)

delivered(item)

Resource Dependency

Task Dependency

Goal Dependency

Soft−Goal Dependency

Depender Dependee

LEGEND

Open (uncommitted)

Critical

has(item)

delivered

(item)

purInfo

(item)

receive

(item)

purInfo

(item)

paid(item)

recStatus

(item)

client

pur ap

vendor

item

rec

payFor

(item)

invoice

(item)

Abbreviations:

pur = purchasing

rec = receiving

ap= accounts payable

promptly[

has(item)]

Depender Dependum Dependee

engineer

stock

room

assistant

supplier

part

make(part)

has(part)

promptly

[has(part)]

(a) Resource Dependency

(b) Task Dependency

(d) Soft−Goal Dependency

insured

(customer)

customer

case

manager

underwriting

consultant

credit

consultant

credit

advice

underwriting

advice

(b) after

customer

write

policy

check

credit

give

quote

quoting

clerk

credit

clerk

under−

writing

clerk

under−

writing

supervisor

quoting

supervisor

credit

supervisor

(a) before

policy

application

quoted

application

credit

approved

application

process

(routine

CreditApp)

process

(creditApp)

satisfied

(customer)

director

case

manager

credit

manager

credit

supervisor

credit

clerk

(a) before (b) after

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J Model Manag

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