Some Methodological Clues for Defining a Unified Enterprise Modelling Language

The need for a Unified Enterprise Modelling Language (UEML) that would be used as in inter-lingua among enterprise modelling software tools has been established. The process of defining this UEML goes through the elaboration of a precise meta-model describing the constructs of the language. A possible and reasonable approach for the definition of this meta-model is to integrate (parts of) meta-models of existing enterprise modelling languages. This approach has similarities with the well studied problem of databases integration in which the models of several databases have to be integrated into a single one. In this paper, we make an analogy between the two problems and review a state of the art methodology proposed in database integration to derive methodological clues for the definition of the meta-model of a UEML. 1. TOWARDS A UNIFIED EML Enterprise modelling (EM) has long been recognised as a valuable activity (Vernadat, 1996). However, the current situation in this domain prevents us from getting the most benefits from EM. Many enterprise modelling languages (EMLs) exist and offer similar but slightly different constructs for modelling. A model written in a particular language can rarely be understood by people not familiar with this language. The different language supporting tools offer different interesting functionalities, but the absence of common understanding of the models by the different tools prevents the exchange of models created by each tool, disabling the user from using these functionalities in a model without rewriting it completely in another language. As an enterprise is a complex entity and because modelling needs are diverse, several models are often produced with different languages but no