Research activity in 1998
The research activity of the Data Base and Information Systems group in 1998 followed two main research directions: the analysis of methodologies and models for the design of integrated information systems and the development of multimedia data bases.
In the first area, starting from a deep analysis of the functional organisation of the enterprise in terms of a hierarchically structured set of organisation networks which describe the flow of objects (information or materials) manipulated in the enterprise, and its functional behaviour, i.e., the flow of control), we developed new versions of the M* methodology, i.e. the M*OBJECT and the M*COMPLEX methodologies.
These methodologies (and the related models) have been applied to integrated manufacturing environments which are based on the management of concurrent business processes. These business processes must be engineered in a systematic way to guarantee compliance with business requirements and overall system consistency and efficiency. In fact, engineering is a systematic approach to the design of products and their manufacturing processes to address the QCD (Quality, Cost, Delay) challenge faced by most industrial companies and thus improve customer satisfaction.
The first result in this field was M*, an information system design methodology developed for CIM environments which covers the analysis of a manufacturing organization (Organization Analysis), the modelling of its information system (Conceptual Design), and the design of the related database environments which will support the automated operations of the organization (Implementation Design). The model used for conceptual design was based on the integration of the Entity-Relationship model with PrT nets to model static and dynamic properties.
M* has been the subject of extensive experimentations by several consulting companies, which suggested improvements of the original design. The new version of the methodology, called M*-OBJECT, incorporates the object-oriented paradigm into the analysis phase.
In 1998, the Organization Analysis phase has been deeply restructured in order to cope with complex environments, and a tool - M*PROCESS - for modeling and analysis of business processes has been developed. It is well-established now that a process-based (i.e. a horizontal) approach must be adopted to model organisations for the purpose of integration rather than function-based (i.e. vertical) approaches, because the aim of CIM is to brake down organisational barriers and rationalise process and information flows rather than creating "islands of automation".
The new M*-COMPLEX methodology is a structured framework which provides a step-by-step strategy ensuring consistent and correct results. It analyses functional, behavioural, information and organisation aspects of the object organization, and it strongly enforces an event-driven process-based approach at all levels (the organizational level, the conceptual level, and the implementation level are considered) as opposed to traditional function-based approaches for analysing and designing computer-supported integrated engineering environments. M*-COMPLEX adopts a new executable organization model which is supported by M*-PROCESS, a tool based upon the following set of prerequisites:
1) the environment should be highly interactive, with an icon-driven graphic editor to specify both functional and process nets. Consistency rules must guarantee a coordinated development of different types of specifications.
2) process specifications should be executable by a discrete event simulation software. Simulation can be used to investigate different system functionalities in order to bring into focus areas where implicit misunderstandings exist between users and designers.
In the area of the development of multimedia data bases, a model for knowledge management and discovery for multimedia information bases has been introduced. The paper "Dynamic taxonomies: a model for large information bases" was submitted for publication on IEEE Transaction on Data and Knowledge Engineering.
Moreover, a prototype authoring system for HTML CDROMs, loosely based on HDM and objected oriented databases has been developed. A initial version of the prototype, on which work is still in progress, was sucessfully used for the production of three commercial titles.
Other research interests of the group are directed towards data clustering strategies and buffering strategies for non uniform access distributions.
1998 Publications
A. Di Leva - Rapporto INTERDATA T1-R11 "M*COMPLEX: una Metodologia di Analisi e Progetto nelle Pubbliche Amministrazioni (Analisi Organizzativa)" - 26/10/98
R. Berchi, A. Di Leva, P. Giolito, A. Maraviglia “M*COMPLEX: una metodologia e uno strumento per l’analisi dei processi aziendali” Atti Conv. AIRO Logistica, Trasporti e Qualità, Treviso (1998), pp. 511-514
G. Berio, A. DiLeva, P. Giolito, F. Vernadat "Timed Process and Data Nets: An Object-Oriented Conceptual Model for Reactive Systems", (submitted for publication).
G. Sacco "Dynamic taxonomies: a model for large information bases" (submitted for publication)
