1. INFORMATION
ENGINEERING
ELLOSO / IGNACIO / SEMINIANO / TARUN

2. Overview
 What is Information Engineering?
 History
 Variants of IE
 IE Techniques
 Software tools for IE

3. What is Information
Engineering?
 It is a systematic approach to the analysis,
design, assessment, implementation, test,
maintenance and reengineering of software.
 An integrated and evolutionary set of tasks
and techniques that enhance business
communication throughout an enterprise
enabling it to develop people, procedures and
systems to achieve its vision

4. History
 It originated in Australia between 1976 and
1980, and appears first in the literature in a
series of six InDepth articles by the same
name published by US Computerworld in May
- June 1981.
 Information engineering first provided data
analysis and database design techniques that
could be used by database
administrators (DBAs) and by systems
analysts.

5. History (cont)
 Clive Finkelstein
 “Father of Information
Engineering”

6. History (cont)
 The Finkelstein thread evolved from 1976 as
the business driven variant of IE. The Martin
thread evolved into the data processing-driven
(DP) variant of IE.
 From 1983 till 1986 IE evolved further into a
stronger business-driven variant of IE, which
was intended to address a rapidly changing
business environment.

7. IE variants
 DP-driven
 Business-driven

8. DP-driven Variant of IE
 Information Strategy Planning (ISP):
develop a plan for implementing business
systems to support business needs.
 Outline Business Area Analysis (OBAA) :
answers a range of questions related to
implementation of a business area.

9. DP-driven Variant of IE (cont)
 Detailed Business Area Analysis (DBAA) :
provide detailed models as a solid basis for
system design.
 Business System Design : specify all
aspects of a system that are relevant to its
users, in preparation for the technical design,
construction, and installation of one or more
closely related databases and systems.

10. DP-driven Variant of IE (cont)
 Technical Design : prepares an
implementation area for construction and
installation.
 Construction : produce a system, as defined
in the technical specification, on time and
within budget.
 Transition : the period during which newly
developed procedures gradually replace or are
interfaced with existing procedures.

11. Business-driven Variant of IE for
Rapid Delivery
 Strategy Analysis : This is a rapid delivery
method for senior managers and business unit
managers for refinement of existing strategic
business plans, or development of new
strategic business plans if none exist yet.
 Strategic Modeling: This uses a facilitated
modeling session with senior business
managers who review the strategic business
plans to develop a strategic model.

12. Business-driven Variant of IE for
Rapid Delivery (cont)
 Tactical and Operational Modeling : This
uses the same approach as for strategic
modeling, but focuses on tactical business
units.
 Activity Modeling : Activity models, based on
IDEF0 and activity-based costing, are used to
document priority business activities for rapid
delivery.

13. Business-driven Variant of IE for
Rapid Delivery (cont)
 Process Modeling : Business Process
Modeling Notation (BPMN) is used, supported
by modeling tools, to define process model
diagrams in BPMN of priority activities for
rapid delivery into production.
 Code Generation : BPMN process model
diagrams are used to generate XML-based
code in Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) for execution.

14. IE techniques
 Entity analysis : identifies all the things that
the enterprise may want to hold data about.
 Function analysis and process
dependency : takes a function (a major
business activity) of the enterprise and breaks
it down into elementary business processes.

15. IE Techniques (cont)
 Process logic analysis : describes the
sequences of actions carried out by a business
process and shows which data are used by each
action.
 Entity type lifecycle analysis : describes the
significant business changes to entities and
confirm that processes have been modelled to
effect these changes
 Matrix cross-checking : creates cross-
references between data objects and processes
to verify that they are necessary and complete.

16. IE Techniques (cont)
 Normalization : provides a formal means of
confirming the correctness of the entity model.
 Cluster analysis : helps define the scope of
design areas for proposed business systems.
 Data flow and data analysis : makes a
comparison possible between the business area
models and the systems currently supporting this
area, these current systems are analyzed using
data flow and data analysis techniques.

17. Software tools for IE
 Information engineering Facility
(IEF) from Texas Instruments Software. This was
subsequently sold to Sterling Software and then to
Computer Associates.
 Metastorm's ProVision product provides support
for many types of modeling techniques using a
repository based tool.
 Microsoft Visio provides diagramming support
for some of the Martin techniques, such as
the Crow's Foot notation.

18. References
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_engine
ering
 http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/divisions/vi
ew/F