REA2: A unified formalisation of the Resource-Event-Agent Ontology

Through a proof of concept in SWI-Prolog, this paper demonstrates a business transaction model by which the trading partners can derive their own, personal perspective from shared data. The demonstration is an innovative formalisation of the Resource-Event-Agent (REA) ontology as it allows for switching viewpoints in real-time between one trading-partner’s perspective and that of a trading-partner with an opposing view (i.e. customer or supplier), or a trading-partner independent perspective (e.g. trusted third-party). The business transaction model is achieved by uniting REA with the Open-EDI Business Transaction Ontology (OeBTO). The resulting unified formalisation of the REA ontology (REA2) also highlights implications for the future development of a) enterprise information systems (EIS) in the cloud, b) social-mediabased EIS, c) blockchain EIS, and d) EIS interoperability across business paradigms. The EIS interoperability such as between traditional EIS (which typically uses a tradingpartner perspective), and EIS for the collaborative economy (which typically uses a trading-partner independent perspective) is particularly highlighted as it becomes much more transparent than previously

Track and Trace Future, Present, and Past Product and Money Flows with a Resource-Event-Agent Model

In this article the authors present a reference model for the reg- istration of economic data that enables the tracking and tracing of product and money flows in the registered data. The model is grounded in the Resource-Event-Agent (REA) ontology, which has its origin in accounting and provides the conceptual foundation for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) open-edi transaction standard. The use of the reference model is illustrated with an example database that demonstrates the different usage scenarios covered by the model

Resources-Events-Agents Design Theory: A Revolutionary Approach to Enterprise System Design

Enterprise systems typically include constructs such as ledgers and journals with debit and credit entries as central pillars of the systems’ architecture due in part to accountants and auditors who demand those constructs. At best, structuring systems with such constructs as base objects results in the storing the same data at multiple levels of aggregation, which creates inefficiencies in the database. At worst, basing systems on such constructs destroys details that are unnecessary for accounting but that may facilitate decision making by other enterprise functional areas. McCarthy (1982) proposed the resources-events-agents (REA) framework as an alternative structure for a shared data environment more than thirty years ago, and scholars have further developed it such that it is now a robust design theory. Despite this legacy, the broad IS community has not widely researched REA. In this paper, we discuss REA’s genesis and primary constructs, provide a history of REA research, discuss REA’s impact on practice, and speculate as to what the future may hold for REA-based enterprise systems. We invite IS researchers to consider integrating REA constructs with other theories and various emerging technologies to help advance the future of information systems and business research

Implementation of Track and Trace system in a pharmaceutical company

The increasing global threats caused by a prohibited trade of counterfeit pharmaceutical goods encourage countries around the world to gradually apply a set of global standards and provisions that could play a vital role in counterbalancing and thus eliminating the problem. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to provide a conceptual systematic presentation of the actual global serialization and traceability requirements in pharmacy and therefore show how to introduce a sustainable and efficient IT system meeting all the demands from the perspective of a manufacturing pharmaceutical company using a practical example. To support the complex decision-making of the best fit solution for our implementation from a set of possible traceability solution systems, the computer program designed for multi-attribute decision making DEXI was used. The SAP Aii/OER traceability solution was selected as the most suitable one and therefore all the aspects of the architectural design comprise SAP as a central component and an interface of the architectural installation. To ensure a holistic approach to the analysis and visualization of the pharmaceutical company business process, the Archimate tool was applied as an enterprise architecture modelling language. The Archimate presentation encompassed the enterprise, application and technical levels. The results of the preparation conducted showed the practical implementation of the SAP Aii/ OER system through the use of ASAP methodology considered as a standard approach in the field of the AS systems. To substantiate the thesis, practical examples of the implementation were included demonstrating the SAP Aii/OE platform. The thesis results in a new and well-functioning integrated SAP Aii/OER system within the SAP ECC environment

Implementation of Track and Trace system in a pharmaceutical company

The increasing global threats caused by a prohibited trade of counterfeit pharmaceutical goods encourage countries around the world to gradually apply a set of global standards and provisions that could play a vital role in counterbalancing and thus eliminating the problem. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to provide a conceptual systematic presentation of the actual global serialization and traceability requirements in pharmacy and therefore show how to introduce a sustainable and efficient IT system meeting all the demands from the perspective of a manufacturing pharmaceutical company using a practical example. To support the complex decision-making of the best fit solution for our implementation from a set of possible traceability solution systems, the computer program designed for multi-attribute decision making DEXI was used. The SAP Aii/OER traceability solution was selected as the most suitable one and therefore all the aspects of the architectural design comprise SAP as a central component and an interface of the architectural installation. To ensure a holistic approach to the analysis and visualization of the pharmaceutical company business process, the Archimate tool was applied as an enterprise architecture modelling language. The Archimate presentation encompassed the enterprise, application and technical levels. The results of the preparation conducted showed the practical implementation of the SAP Aii/ OER system through the use of ASAP methodology considered as a standard approach in the field of the AS systems. To substantiate the thesis, practical examples of the implementation were included demonstrating the SAP Aii/OE platform. The thesis results in a new and well-functioning integrated SAP Aii/OER system within the SAP ECC environment

Eine Analyse der Literatur zur Referenzmodellierung im Geschäftsprozessmanagement unter Berücksichtigung quantitativer Methoden

Im Geschäftsprozessmanagement nimmt die Referenzmodellierung bei der Gestaltung von Geschäftsprozessen eine große Bedeutung ein, da auf bereits existierende Modelle zurückgegriffen werden kann. So kann Zeit für die Entwicklung der Prozesse eingespart und von bereits etabliertem Wissen profitiert werden. Die vorliegende Masterarbeit analysiert die Literatur im Bereich der Referenzmodellierung im Geschäftsprozessmanagement unter Berücksichtigung quantitativer Methoden. Es werden insbesondere die Forschungsrichtungen bzw. Themenbereiche, Entwicklungen und der aktuelle Stand der Literatur in diesem Bereich ermittelt. Zunächst werden deutsch- und englischsprachige Artikel nach bestimmten Kriterien ausgewählt. Anschließend folgt eine quantitativ orientierte Analyse der Literatur. Dabei kommt die Latente Semantische Analyse zum Einsatz, mit deren Hilfe Themenbereiche ermittelt werden und die einzelnen Beiträge den ermittelten Themenbereichen zugeordnet werden können. Darüber hinaus wird die Entwicklung der Anzahl der Artikel in den Themenbereichen im Zeitverlauf betrachtet und auf Unterschiede zwischen der deutsch- und englischsprachigen Literatur eingegangen. In der darauf folgenden qualitativ orientierten Analyse werden die Artikel der einzelnen Themenbereiche inhaltlich analysiert und der aktuelle Stand der Forschung dargestellt. Nicht zuletzt werden die Ergebnisse der qualitativen Analyse in Bezug zu den Ergebnissen der quantitativen Analyse gesetzt