Ontology ENTERPRISE-V0.1


Ontology documentation:

This is the Ontology for the Enterprise Project .

Conceptually, the Enterprise Ontology it is divided into a number of main sections -- these are summarised below.

ACTIVITIES and PROCESSES:

The central term is Activity. This is intended to capture the notion of anything that involves doing, in particular including action. The concept of Activity is closely linked with the idea of the Doer, which may be a Person, Organisational-Unit or Machine. These terms are defined in the Organisation section and may collectively be referred to as Potential-Actor s. The ability to be the Doer of an Activity is denoted by Capability (or Skill if the Doer is a Person). Actors may have other Roles in respect of an Activity such as Activity-Owner.

Also closely related to Activity is Resource, which is something used or consumed in an Activity. An Activity can also have outputs or Effects. An Activity is linked to a Time-Interval, which is defined in the Time section. An Activity may be large and complex and take a long time. This may be represented as composition of many Sub-Activity s.

An Activity can obviously have happened in the past and may be happening in the present. The term can also be used to refer to a hypothetical future Activity. However, there is a need to refer explicitly to specifications or plans for Activities. This is provided by the term Activity-Spec. An Activity-Spec specifies at some level of detail one or more possible Activities. If the Activity-Spec has an Intended-Purpose, it is called a Plan. The concept of repeatability of an Activity or Plan is captured in the term Process-Specification.

Control of doing of Activities is important to enterprises. This is provided by the Relationship Hold-Authority denoting that an Actor has the right to perform the Activities as specified in an Activity-Spec.

ORGANISATION:

Central to the Organisation section are concepts of Legal-Entity and ORGANISATIONAL UNIT (abbreviated as OU). Both of these refer to things which have a `gestalt' whether they are individual or composite. They differ in that a Legal-Entity is recognised as having rights and responsibilities in the world at large and by legal jurisdictions in particular, whereas Organisational-Unit need only have full recognition within an organisation.

Legal-Entity includes Person and Corporation. Larger Legal-Entities may wholly own other smaller Legal-Entities. An Organisational-Unit may be large and complex, even transcending Legal-Entities. Large OUs will normally be seen as being made up from smaller ones. The smallest may correspond to a single Person, in fact a particular Person could be seen as corresponding with more than one small OU.

A Machine is a non-human, non- Legal-Entity that may play certain Roles otherwise played by a Person or Ou (e.g. perform an Activity).

The Ownership of rights and responsibilities may only, from the legal point of view, lie with a Legal-Entity. Within an organisation, rights and responsibilities for Resources may be allocated to OUs. Therefore Ownership is defined to include this, with Legal-Ownership and Non-Legal-Ownership defined to enable the distinction where needed. OUs may be responsible for Activities.

Within an organisation the management structure is represented by Management Links. The term Manage represents assigning Purposes to OUs. An Organisational Structure will be defined as a pattern of Management Links between OUs. This can include multiple Management Links into any one OU with constraints on the different type of Purposes assigned through each link.

STRATEGY:

The central concept of the Strategy section is Purpose. Purpose captures the idea either of something which a PLAN can HELP ACHIEVE or that an ORGANISATION UNIT can be responsible for. In fact it includes any kind of PURPOSE, whether on a level of organisation and time scale which will normally be called strategic, or detailed and short term.

Like an OU, a Purpose can be composed or decomposed. That is, one statement of Purpose may relate to something which can also be seen to Help-Achieve some grander Purpose. By this means, a spectrum of widely used terms like Vision, Mission, Goal, and Objective can be represented without there being shared agreement on precisely how these terms are used.

Strategy is defined as a Plan to Achieve a high-level Purpose. Based on the concept of PLAN from the Activity section, the concepts key to Strategic Planning can be represented with the terms Decision, Assumption, Risk, and various types of Factor.

MARKETING:

The central concept of the Marketing section is Sale. A Sale is an agreement between two Legal-Entities for the exchange of a Product for a Sale-Price. Normally the Product is a good or service and the Sale-Price is monetary, however other possibilities are included. The Legal-Entities play the (usually distinct) Roles of Vendor and Customer. A Sale can have been agreed in the past, and a future Potential-Sale can be envisaged, whether or not the actual Product can be identified, or even exists.

The Market is all Sales and Potential Sales within a scope of interest. The Market may include Sales by Competitors. The Market may be decomposed into Market Segments in many ways in many levels of detail. This can be done by any properties of the Product, Vendor, Customer, Sale-Price or of anything else associated with a Sale. These properties are Segmentation-Variables.

Analysis of a Market may involve understanding of Features of Products, Needs of Customers, and Images of Brands, Products, or Vendors. Promotions are Activities whose Purposes relate to the Image in a Market.


Notes for Enterprise-V0.1:


Summary of Enterprise-V0.1:

Enterprise-V0.1 includes the following ontologies:

    Jat-Generic
       Frame-Ontology
          Kif-Relations
             Kif-Sets
             Kif-Lists
                Kif-Numbers
          Kif-Extensions
             Kif-Sets
             Kif-Lists ...
             Kif-Numbers
             Kif-Relations ...
          Kif-Meta
             Kif-Sets
             Kif-Lists ...

No ontologies include Enterprise-V0.1.

Enterprise-V0.1 uses the same ontologies as it includes.

No ontologies use Enterprise-V0.1.

Class hierarchy (74 classes defined):

    Eo-Entity
       Activity-Or-Spec
          Activity
             Delegate
             Event
             Manage
             Planning
                Strategic-Planning
             Resource-Allocation
          Activity-Spec
             Plan
                Process-Spec
                Strategy
                Sub-Plan
                   Strategic-Action
       Decision
       Employment-Contract
       For-Sale
          Proposed-Sale-Offer
       Good-Service-Or-Money
       Has-Monetary-Value
          Asset
       Legal-Entity
          Corporation
          Partnership
          Person
             Partner
          Shareholder
          Vendor
       Misc-Spec-Detail
          Activity-State
          When-Hold-Spec
             Effect-When-Hold
             Pre-Condition-When-Hold
       Ownership
          Legal-Ownership
          Non-Legal-Ownership
             Activity-Ownership
       Planning-Constraint
          Effect
          Pre-Condition
       Potential-Actor
          Actor
             Activity-Owner
             Actual-Doer
             Owner
             Partner
             Purpose-Holder
             Shareholder
             Specified-Doer
             Stakeholder
             Vendor
          Machine
          Organisational-Unit
          Person ...
       Potential-Sale
       Qua-Entity
          Actor ...
          Assumption
             Critical-Assumption
             Non-Critical-Assumption
          Plan ...
          Product
          Purpose
             Critical-Success-Factor
             Goal
             Mission
             Objective
             Strategic-Purpose
             Vision
          Resource
          Sub-Plan ...
       Sale
       Share
       Share-Type
       Shareholding
    Role-Class
    State-Of-Affairs
       Assumption ...
       Influence-Factor
          Critical-Influence-Factor
          Non-Critical-Influence-Factor
       Purpose ...

53 relations defined:

  Activity-Status
  Actual-Activity-Interval
  Actual-Effect
  Actual-Output
  Actual-Pre-Condition
  Actually-Execute
  Assumed
  Can-Use-Resource
  Chosen-Activity
  Corporation-Of
  Decision-Taker
  Employee
  Employer
  Execution-Of-Activity-Spec
  Have-Capability
  Have-Skill
  Help-Achieve
  Hold-Authority
  Hold-Purpose
  Holds-Stake-In
  In-Scope-Of-Interest
  Intended-Purpose
  Known-True
  Managed-By
  Manages
  Number-Held
  Owned-Entity
  Owned-Rights
  Owning-Actor
  Parent-Legal-Entity
  Partner-Of
  Perceived-Risk
  Plan-Assumption
  Planning-Assumption
  Resource-Substitute
  Responsibilities-Of-Owner
  Restricted-List-Of-Relsents
  Restricted-Relsent
  Share-Type-Of
  Shareholder-Of
  Specified-Activity-Interval
  Specified-Effect
  Specified-Output
  Specified-Potential-Customer
  Specified-Pre-Condition
  Specified-To-Execute
  State-Description
  Sub-Activity
  Sub-Activity-Spec
  Sub-Plan-Of
  Used-Or-Associated-With
  When-Hold
  Works-For-Ou

7 functions defined:

  Actual-Customer
  Asking-Price
  For-Sale-Vendor
  Product-For-Sale
  Product-Sold
  Sale-Price
  Sale-Vendor

10 instances defined:

  After-T-Begin
  After-T-End
  Always
  Before-T-Begin
  Before-T-End
  During-Whole-Interval
  Future
  Ordinary
  Past
  Present

86 unnamed axioms defined.

No named axioms defined.

74 classes defined:

  Activity
  Activity-Or-Spec
  Activity-Owner
  Activity-Ownership
  Activity-Spec
  Activity-State
  Actor
  Actual-Doer
  Asset
  Assumption
  Corporation
  Critical-Assumption
  Critical-Influence-Factor
  Critical-Success-Factor
  Decision
  Delegate
  Effect
  Effect-When-Hold
  Employment-Contract
  Eo-Entity
  Event
  For-Sale
  Goal
  Good-Service-Or-Money
  Has-Monetary-Value
  Influence-Factor
  Legal-Entity
  Legal-Ownership
  Machine
  Manage
  Misc-Spec-Detail
  Mission
  Non-Critical-Assumption
  Non-Critical-Influence-Factor
  Non-Legal-Ownership
  Objective
  Organisational-Unit
  Owner
  Ownership
  Partner
  Partnership
  Person
  Plan
  Planning
  Planning-Constraint
  Potential-Actor
  Potential-Sale
  Pre-Condition
  Pre-Condition-When-Hold
  Process-Spec
  Product
  Proposed-Sale-Offer
  Purpose
  Purpose-Holder
  Qua-Entity
  Resource
  Resource-Allocation
  Role-Class
  Sale
  Share
  Share-Type
  Shareholder
  Shareholding
  Specified-Doer
  Stakeholder
  State-Of-Affairs
  Strategic-Action
  Strategic-Planning
  Strategic-Purpose
  Strategy
  Sub-Plan
  Vendor
  Vision
  When-Hold-Spec

The following constants were used from included ontologies:

All constants that were mentioned were defined.