MSc Dissertation on Enterprise Systems Modelling

FACULTY OF ARTS, COMPUTING, ENGINEERING AND SCIENCES
POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMMES
MSc
Dissertation
Student Name ZAID AYOTUNJI ADEOGUN
Student ID 22040934
Course Title ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS PROFESSIONAL
Supervisor DR. SIMON POLOVINA
Date of
Submission
Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences
City Campus Sheffield S1 1WB United Kingdom

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FACULTY OF ARTS, COMPUTING, ENGINEERING AND SCIENCES
POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMMES
A Descriptive Analysis of Enterprise Ontology
and Semantics in LEADing Practice and
Essential Project
By
Zaid Adeogun
Supervised by
Dr. Simon Polovina
September 2014
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of
Master of Science in Enterprise Systems Professional

iii
Acknowledgement
Firstly, I will like to thank the God Almighty for giving me the ability to be able
reach this level in life and academics.
My sincere gratitude goes to Dr. Simon Polovina for his guidance throughout
this research and his teachings on the subject. I also will like to thank Dr Sharif
Hossein for his teachings of Enterprise Architecture.
I dedicate this work to my parents for providing both financial and moral support
throughout this degree. This dedication will also be extended to my sister for her
help throughout this degree, I appreciate it all and I hope soon enough I will be
in a position to do more for you.

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Abstract
Like Charles Darwin said “it is neither the smartest nor the strongest that
survive but those most adaptive to change” yet many enterprises around the
world still have difficulties while trying to fulfil the capabilities and meet their
goals.
Enterprise modelling is the act of making a model of an enterprise so as to
facilitate change and to produce good enterprise architecture of an enterprise.
The enterprise architecture frameworks tend to help in designing this enterprise
model but they all still lack a standard description language because they tend
to mix-up the captured information from the presented information.
Many projects within an enterprise fail because they lack semantics and
ontology in their enterprise model. The aim of this research is to investigate the
extent to which ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling is being aided
by LEADing Practice and Essential Project.
A descriptive case study was used that helps in describing ontology and
semantics in LEADing Practice and Essential Project with the aim of gaining a
deeper understanding of how these concepts improve enterprise modelling.
Interviews were also carried out to substantiate the evidence from the case
studies used for this study
The findings in the descriptive case study revealed that both LEADing Practice
and Essential Project will help give enterprise architects a standard description
language for modelling the enterprise because of ontology and semantics. This
will also allow for the gap between BPM and EA to be bridged thereby allowing
enterprise architecture to fulfil its goal of aligning business with IT.
This research recommends that the LEADing Practice enterprise modelling
standard can work with Essential Project meta-model within the modelling
environment of Essential to produce a high quality enterprise model that will not
only help facilitate change within an enterprise but also deliver value .
An area for future work will look into how the concepts discussed in this
research will be used in the visualisation tool called Essential Viewer which will
help business and IT stakeholders view and analyse reports and also in
decision making.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgement .........................................................................................................iii
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................iv
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................1
1.1 Background of the Study ................................................................................1
1.2 Statement of Problem and Research Focus ...............................................1
1.3 Research Question and Objectives ..............................................................2
1.3.1 Research Question...................................................................................2
1.3.2 Research Objectives................................................................................3
1.4 Research Methodology...................................................................................3
1.5 Organization of Thesis....................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................5
2.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................5
2.2 Business Process Management....................................................................5
2.3 Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Modelling ......................................6
2.4 Ontology and Semantics in Enterprise Modelling.......................................7
2.5 Integrating Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management
8
2.6 Enterprise Architecture Frameworks ............................................................8
2.6.1 Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework .....................................9
2.6.2 The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF)....................... 10
2.7 Summary and Gaps in Literatures Reviewed........................................... 14
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................................. 16
3.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 16
3.2 Research Objectives .................................................................................... 16
3.3 Research Strategy........................................................................................ 17
3.3.1 Case Study............................................................................................. 17
3.3.2 Justification for the use of Case Study............................................... 18
3.4 Sources of Data Collection.......................................................................... 19
3.4.1 Case Study Data Collection................................................................. 19
3.4.2 Interviews................................................................................................ 20
3.5 Framework for Data Analysis...................................................................... 20
3.6 Limitations and Potential Problems............................................................ 21
CASE STUDY REPORT............................................................................................. 23
Reason behind Choosing LEADing Practice and Essential Project................ 23

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4.1 Case Study 1: LEADing Practice ................................................................... 23
4.1.1 Overview of LEADing Practice ................................................................ 23
4.1.2 Ontology and Semantics in LEADing Practice ..................................... 24
4.1.3 Enterprise Modelling in LEADing Practices .......................................... 25
4.1.3.1 Enterprise Modelling in LEADing Practice ..................................... 26
4.2 Case Study 2: Essential Project Report........................................................ 29
4.2.1 Overview of Essential Project.................................................................. 29
4.2.2 Ontology and Semantics in Essential Project....................................... 29
4.2.3 Enterprise Modelling in Essential Project .............................................. 30
4.3 Cross-Case Findings and Discussion ........................................................... 43
Interview Results ..................................................................................................... 44
Finding 1 ................................................................................................................... 46
Finding 2 ................................................................................................................... 46
Finding 3: Comparison of LEADing Practice with Essential Project................ 47
Finding 4 ................................................................................................................... 47
Summary of Findings .............................................................................................. 48
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 49
5.1 Research Objectives .................................................................................... 49
Objective 1: To investigate Ontology and Semantics in Enterprise Modelling
................................................................................................................................ 49
Objective 2: To investigate the contribution of LEADing Practice and
Essential Project to semantics and ontology in enterprise modelling ......... 49
Objective 3: To compare enterprise modelling in LEADing Practices with
Essential Project .................................................................................................. 50
Objective 4: To investigate the integration of business process
management with enterprise architecture ....................................................... 50
5.2 Evaluation of Thesis..................................................................................... 50
5.3 Future Research Ideas ................................................................................ 51
Bibliography.................................................................................................................. 52
Appendix A: Research Proposal ............................................................................... 56
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 56
RESEARCH QUESTION........................................................................................ 56
Research Topic:................................................................................................... 56
Main Research Question........................................................................................ 56
RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................... 57

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Research objectives................................................................................................ 57
LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 57
Enterprise Architecture ........................................................................................... 57
Enterprise Architecture Frameworks .................................................................... 58
Semantics and Ontology in Enterprise Architecture .......................................... 59
Service Oriented Architecture................................................................................ 60
Conceptual Graphs ................................................................................................. 60
Transaction Oriented Architecture ........................................................................ 60
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY and TOOLS .......................................................... 61
Target audience and evaluation of potential outcome........................................... 63
Research Ethics....................................................................................................... 65
REFERENCES............................................................................................................. 66
Appendix B: Sheffield Hallam University Research Ethics Checklist.................. 69
Appendix C: Semi-Structured Interview Questions ................................................ 73
Participant One: LEADing Practice Based .......................................................... 73
Participant Two: Essential Project Based............................................................ 73
Appendix D: Composition and Decomposition of Requirements ......................... 74

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Table of Figures
Figure 1: The Zachman Enterprise Framework (Zachman 2008) ....................... 10
Figure 2: TOGAF Content Overview (The Open Group 2013) ............................ 11
Figure 3: TOGAF ADM Phases (The Open Group 2013)..................................... 12
Figure 4: The types of Case Study Research (Biggam 2011).............................. 18
Figure 5: Designing Case Studies (Andrews 2011) ............................................... 21
Figure 6: Enterprise Modelling, Enterprise Engineering and Enterprise
Architecture................................................................................................................... 26
Figure 7: Components of Essential Project (Enterprise Architecture Solutions
2014).............................................................................................................................. 29
Figure 8: Essential Concepts (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2013)............. 30
Figure 9: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Conceptual modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 31
Figure 10: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Logical modelling in Protégé.
........................................................................................................................................ 32
Figure 11: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Physical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 33
Figure 12: The Business Modelling Overview within the three layers ................ 33
Figure 13: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Conceptual modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 34
Figure 14: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Logical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 35
Figure 15: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Physical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 36
Figure 16: The Application Modelling Overview within the three layers ............. 36
Figure 17: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Conceptual modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 37
Figure 18: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Logical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 38
Figure 19: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Physical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 39
Figure 20: The Information Modelling Overview within the three layers............. 39
Figure 21: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Conceptual modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 40
Figure 22: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Logical Modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 41
Figure 23: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Physical modelling in
Protégé.......................................................................................................................... 42
Figure 24: The Technology Modelling Overview within the three layers ............ 42

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List of Tables
Table 1: First Participant Interview Summary ......................................................... 44
Table 2: Second Participant Interview Summary ................................................... 45
Table 3: Summary of Comparison between LEADing Practice and Essential
Project ........................................................................................................................... 47

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
An enterprise is defined as any collection of organization that has a
common set of goals, a good example is an agency within the government like
the ministry of finance which has several entities under it but they all have a
major goal of maintaining the finance of a country. A Model is the representation
or structure of something while modelling is the act of making a model while
enterprise modelling is the act of making the structure of an enterprise (Harrison
2009).
Enterprise architecture is a "strategic approach to architecture that
addresses a whole enterprise" (BCS 2013). Enterprise modelling is not a total
new concept, it can be said to be field or branch of enterprise architecture
because good enterprise architecture will depend on how good the enterprise
modelling was carried out. The need for a good enterprise modelling cannot be
over-emphasized because the operating model of an enterprise is connected to
the enterprise architecture (Buuren 2004).
There are various enterprise architecture frameworks that help in
enterprise modelling. Zachman and TOGAF are discussed in the literature
review chapter because of the impact of these frameworks in the enterprise
architecture modelling world.
1.2 Statement of Problem and Research Focus
The use of ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling is an
important concept in the enterprise architecture world (Buuren 2004); this is
because currently so many enterprise architect come up with their own
modelling techniques for each architectural domain. This is happening because
there is no standard enterprise architecture description language that can be
used in enterprise modelling (Buuren 2004).

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Also the main focus of enterprise architecture is to enable IT deliver
business value which is aligning business with information technology but this is
not being fulfilled at the moment which is making executives lose confidence
that enterprise architecture can bring value to their enterprise. It was also
highlighted that less than 5% of enterprise uses enterprise architecture
effectively because of poor enterprise models (Ross, Weill and Robertson 2006).
So many projects fail within an enterprise because they do not have
ontology and semantics to assist in communication between human agents in
order to achieve interoperability among computer systems or to improve
process and quality (Dongwoo et al. 2010). It was also highlighted that well-
modelled enterprise architecture will bring great benefits to an organization no
matter the size using the Delta Airline and MetLife case study (Ross 2004);
Nowadays organisations do not pay so much attention to modelling enterprise
architecture because organisations are not getting the required value from the
enterprise architecture frameworks (Buuren 2004).
From this reasoning, the research question originated as also discussed in the
research proposal by (Adeogun 2014).
The main focus will be to discuss how ontology and semantics in LEADing
Practice and Essential Project help in enterprise architecture modelling.
1.3 Research Question and Objectives
Research questions might take some time to be formulated but they are
the starting point for a focused research. In some fields and in some projects,
their aim might be to work towards a research question over the years (Andrews
2003).
The research question in this proposal emerged from the literature review as
also discussed in the research proposal by (Adeogun 2014)
1.3.1 Research Question
This major aim is to investigate the extent to which ontology and semantics in
enterprise modelling is being aided by the LEADing Practice enterprise
modelling standard and the Essential Project meta-model. In order to fulfil this,
a research question and a number of objectives were set.

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"To what extent will LEADing Practice and Essential Project help in enterprise
modelling?"
1.3.2 Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are:
i. To investigate the concept of ontology and semantics in enterprise
modelling
ii. To investigate the contribution of LEADing Practice and Essential Project
to ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling
iii. To compare enterprise modelling in LEADing Practice with Essential
Project.
iv. To investigate if both LEADing Practice and Essential Project bridge the
gap between Business Process Management and Enterprise
Architecture.
1.4 Research Methodology
The case study strategy was used to achieve the objectives of this
research because it is a strategy used when studying one or more example of
a particular type of something (Biggam 2011) . The case study report in chapter
4 was achieved by conducting desk research which mainly involves collecting
background information on both LEADing Practice and Essential Projects and
relevant documents. The type of case study used in this research is the
descriptive case study which is preferred for producing the full description of a
phenomenon in order to get a deeper understanding of that particular
phenomenon. Multiple case studies were also used to make sure the
conclusions reached are valid and reliable because there are some
misconceptions about single case studies (Flyvberg 2004).
A small sample of interviews was included to substantiate the resources that
were gotten from the desk research and also to serve as a form of primary data.
1.5 Organization of Thesis
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter contains the background of the study, the research focus and a
little bit of the research methodology. How the research question was
formulated was also discussed and the objectives of the research are outlined.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review
In this chapter, literatures relating to the domain of this research (enterprise
architecture) were reviewed and the literatures are relevant to the objectives of
this research. There is also a section on the gaps in these literatures that
research intends to fill.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
This chapter covers the research strategy used to achieve the objectives of this
research. It also covers the justification for using this strategy, the data
collection methods and the framework for data analysis.
Chapter 4: Case Study Report
This chapter covers the report on the two case studies used to achieve the
objectives of this research. There is also a section on findings and discussion
from the case study.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
This chapter discusses the summary of this research based on the objectives,
the issues encountered during this research and an important area for further
research.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter will show a comprehensive review of literature relating to
enterprise modelling. All the literature reviewed here will be fully integrated
while the gaps and conflicts will also be addressed if any exist. The discussion
here will be relevant to the research objectives discussed in the previous
chapter. Finally the focus of this chapter is to show the depth of knowledge of
the domain being discussed. The topics covered in this chapter include:
Enterprise Modelling and Business Process Management, Enterprise
Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Frameworks, TOGAF ADM Phases,
Ontology and Semantics in enterprise modelling.
2.2 Business Process Management
A business process is a set of related events which consist of one or
more operations that is important to produce a service or product (AIAI 2001).
Nowadays the rate at which things change is becoming faster and more
dynamic, this is putting more pressure on organizations and enterprises around
the world to keep up with these changes hence the need for proper better
business process management (Rosenberg 2011).
Business process management is when an enterprise or an organization
is planning on taking a business from one state to another (usually an improved
state). Business Process Management is used and applied as an approach and
support to help understand and evaluate the current situation which is referred
to as the "AS-IS situation" and then to develop improvements which is known as
the "TO-BE Situation" (Ulf 2011). The above explanation shows the importance
of business processes to an enterprise but most importantly it shows that
business process of an organization needs to be understood in order to be able
to carry the organization forward which is why it is an integral part while
studying enterprise modelling (Rosenberg 2011).

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2.3 Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Modelling
Enterprise Architecture is said to be the description of the goals of an
organization and how these goals are being achieved by business processes
and also how these business process can be optimized with information
technology. This definition of enterprise architecture is important because it has
emphasis on the business process which was why business process was
explained previously (Sessions 2008).
Enterprise Modelling on the other hand is the modelling of the processes,
infrastructures, or some other elements of a business within an enterprise. It
helps the non-technology people within an enterprise to visualize what is going
on within an enterprise and the strategic position of an enterprise. It has also
been found useful to system analyst because it helps to fix hardware issues and
troubleshooting within an enterprise (Janssen 2010).
Enterprise modelling is currently being used by large enterprises in order
to clarify, analyse and implement their business processes. It is also being used
to help all stakeholders have a common understanding of the enterprise
(Mentzas and Friesen 2010).
This is made possible because enterprise architecture is always
connected to the operating model of an enterprise which makes it important to
have a good enterprise model (Buuren 2004). If an enterprise has a poor model
then it will be difficult for technology to support its business process because
business processes without good IT support are always inefficient (Sessions
2008).
The quality that a good enterprise model will bring to an enterprise
cannot be overemphasized because of the enormous value it brings to the
enterprise. These values are but not limited to better insight, improved
communication between stakeholders and optimized change management but
unfortunately there is difficulty in producing good enterprise models because
there is no standard used among enterprise architect when doing enterprise
modelling (Buuren 2004).

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2.4 Ontology and Semantics in Enterprise Modelling
Having discussed business processes, enterprise architecture and
enterprise modelling and their importance to an enterprise, the next set of
literature that will be reviewed will be on the concept of semantics and ontology
in the enterprise modelling world and how they both help improve enterprise
modelling.
Semantics has to deal with the meaning of something and ontology deals
with the nature of being (Oxforrd University Press 2014). In computing ontology
is said to be a "specification of a conceptualization" while in artificial intelligence
an otology is said to be a set of information where terms are defined and related
to each other (O'Leary 2010)
Relating these definitions to an enterprise, enterprise ontology and semantics is
a collection of terms and definitions relevant to an enterprise and sharing the
meaning across various entities of the enterprise (O'Leary 2010).
The Lack of semantics in enterprise modelling causes communication
problems between humans and between systems within an enterprise. This is
because it reduces the extent to which humans can understand the processes
that the enterprise runs on (Dongwoo et al. 2010) . The problems that arise due
to the lack of semantics in enterprise modelling as discussed in (Dongwoo et al.
2010) made the importance into the research of ontology and semantics in
enterprise modelling important.
Ontology is about concepts and how these concepts are inter-related
collectively so as to impose a structure on the domain (enterprise architecture in
this case). Ontology will assist in communication between human agents with
the ultimate aim of achieving interoperability among implemented systems and
also to improve process (Dongwoo et al. 2010).
Enterprise ontology is the study that describes a well-founded method of
how to model the essence of an organization in a coherent, consistent, concise
and comprehensive way (Dietz 2006). It is focussed on the essence of
operation of an enterprise; this means that it is fully independent of the current
realization and implementation of the enterprise. Likewise (Mentzas and Friesen
2010) discussed how interoperability is important to the modern day enterprise
and how this can be achieved through enterprise semantics and ontology
because the communication problem within the enterprise stated in (Dongwoo
et al. 2010) will be solved.

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2.5 Integrating Enterprise Architecture and Business Process
Management
Having discussed Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Business Process
Management (BPM), it is important to look at literature that bring both fields
together because nowadays the gap between enterprise architecture and
business process management needs to be bridged.
There is much benefit that can be derived from combining enterprise
architecture and business process management if organizations move away
from using these disciplines individually. In a survey conducted by IBM in 2011
it was revealed by 8 out 10 CEOs that their organization will be going through
massive change in a couple of years, for all these changes to be successful
there is need to integrate business process management with enterprise
architecture so as to bridge the gap between the need for change and the ability
to make these changes actualise (Jensen 2011).
This argument was also backed up by (Shankararaman and Kazmi 2011)where
they mentioned some issues that arises in organization has a result of using
enterprise architecture and business process management independently.
Some of these issues are but not limited to:
 No proper alignment between IT architecture to accommodate business
goals
 The IT architecture will not be able to accommodate changes to business
strategy
 Lack of commitment from business to IT projects.
The above issues are raised by (Shankararaman and Kazmi 2011) as
the major issue that will arise if enterprise architecture is not integrated with
business process management.
2.6 Enterprise Architecture Frameworks
There are various enterprise architecture frameworks and new ones are
still being added daily. Enterprise architecture framework is being discussed
because they are the traditional way used by enterprise architect in enterprise
modelling.
The main reason why enterprise architecture was initially design was to manage
the rapid rate at which distributed systems are being developed (Sessions
2007). Every important issue in an enterprise from every perspective is shown

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graphically on the framework with ultimate goal of aligning IT with business
needs.
An architecture framework can also be said to be a tool that can be used
for developing a broad range of architectures in terms of building blocks to
speed up and simplify the architecture development (Harrison 2009).
According to (Minoli 2008) who said that a framework can generally be referred
to as just a detailed method and a set of supporting tools. It was further
explained in (Minoli 2008) that these frameworks provide guidance on how to
describe architectures only and do not provide guidance on how to develop or
implement a specific architecture.
The argument raised in (Minoli 2008) served as a motivation behind this
research because if these frameworks can't provide guidelines on how to
develop or implement specific architecture then we need to look further than
them which is why the LEADing Practice reference content and Essential meta-
model is being investigated.
2.6.1 Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework
One of the first enterprise architecture frameworks is the Zachman
framework which is mainly referred to as a logical structure that provides a
comprehensive representation of an enterprise (Zachman 2008). The Zachman
framework proposed that there are six descriptive foci (data, function, time,
network, people and motivation) and also six player perspectives (owner,
planner, designer, builder, subcontractor and enterprise) (Zachman 2008). This
will be arranged as a two-dimensional grid to enable the consideration of each
functional focus from the perspective of each player.
The Zachman framework is only good for introduction for an initial
venture into the highly complex subject matter of enterprise architectures and
does not comprise of any specific method, adequate tool support or guidelines
for designing and implementing a customized architecture for an enterprise
(Hanschke 2010).

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Figure 1: The Zachman Enterprise Framework (Zachman 2008)
Figure 1 shows the full blueprint of the Zachman enterprise framework.
2.6.2 The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF)
Having discussed Zachman, another important framework is The Open
Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). TOGAF was developed by a
collaborative effort of more than 300 architecture forum member companies
from some of the world's leading IT customers and it is regarded today as the
best practice in architecture development (The Open Group 2009). Enterprise
architectures development usually requires a very technical complex process
while the design of heterogeneous and multi-vendor architecture is complex as
well. TOGAF comes in to help here by aiding the development of architectures
that are consistent, reflect the needs of the stakeholders, employ best practice
and gives good room for scalability while also playing an important role in
helping to "de-mystify" and "de-risk" the process involved in architecture
development (The Open Group 2009).

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2.8.2.1What Makes Up TOGAF?
According to (The Open Group 2013) TOGAF is divided into four major
architectures: business architecture, application architecture, data architecture
and technical architecture although the data architecture and application
architecture have been merged together to form the "information system
architecture".
It was further discussed in (The Open Group 2013), TOGAF is made up
of four major components and they are: Architecture Development Method
(ADM) which is a generic method for developing enterprise architecture. The
Architecture Content Framework used to provide a detailed model of
architectural work products. The Enterprise Continuum used to provide a model
for structuring a virtual repository and also provides methods for classifying
architecture and solution artefacts. The Architecture Capability Framework
which is set of resources, guidelines, templates and background information
used to help the architect establish an architecture practice within an
organization. Finally there are two reference models in TOGAF for possible
inclusion in an enterprise's own continuum.
Figure 2: TOGAF Content Overview (The Open Group 2013)

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2.8.2.2TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM)
The TOGAF ADM is a generic method with eight phases used for
developing enterprise architectures (Hanschke 2010). In each phase of the
ADM, the goals, approaches, requires input activities and deliverables are
documented seperately thereby making the ADM method enriched by specific
ADM guidelines and techniques (Hanschke 2010).
The phases of the ADM are: Architecture Vision, Business Architecture,
Information Systems Architecture, Technology Architecture, Opportunities and
Solutions, Migration Planning, Implementation Governance and Architecture
Change Management (The Open Group 2013).
Figure 3: TOGAF ADM Phases (The Open Group 2013)
Figure 3 shows the phases involved when using the ADM to develop enterprise
architectures. The emphasis is on the

13
I. Preliminary Phase: According to (Harrison 2009), this phase describes
the preparation and initiation activities required to prepare to meet the
business directive for new enterprise architecture.
II. Architecture Vision: In this phase, the initial Architectural Development
Cycle is described. It also includes information relating to defining the
scope, identifying the stakeholders, creating the architecture vision and
obtaining approvals (Harrison 2009).
III. Business Architecture: According to (Harrison 2009), this is the phase
where the description of the development of a business architecture to
support the agreed architecture vision. Also (Hanschke 2010) this phase
also describes the strategies, governance, organisation and business
processes of the enterprise.
IV. Information Systems Architectures: In this phase, the description of the
development of information systems architecture for an enterprise
architecture project takes place (Harrison 2009). This phase has two sub
architectures under it:
 The Data Architecture: According to (Hanschke 2010), here this is
where the data, the associations that exist between them and the
principles for organising and managing resources in the context of
the application landscape is described.
 The Application Architecture describes the applications and the
relationship that exists between them and also between
applications and business processes (Hanschke 2010). Also
according to (BCS 2013) the application architecture focus is on
the data consumed and produced by applications rather than their
internal structure.
V. Technology Architecture: According to (Hanschke 2010), the technology
architecture describes the current technical implementation and the
future technical standards that are specific to an enterprise. (Harrison
2009) also said it describes the development of technology architecture
for an architecture project.

14
VI. Opportunities and Solutions is the phase where an architect conducts
initial implementation planning while the delivery vehicles for the
architecture phases defined previously are identified (Harrison 2009).
VII. Migration Planning addresses how to move from "baseline" to "target"
architectures (Harrison 2009).
VIII. Implementation Governance: This phase provides an architectural
oversight of the implementation (Harrison 2009).
IX. Architecture Change Management establishes the procedures for
managing change to the new architecture (Harrison 2009).
2.7 Summary and Gaps in Literatures Reviewed
In this chapter, the relevant literature to the domain have been discussed
and put into context of the research objectives but this chapter will not be
completed without discussing the gaps in the literature. According to (Michigan
State University 2014) a gap in a literature or research is when any of the
following happens:
 When a research is publishable
 When there are some missing element in the existing literature
 When it doesn’t conflict with your own research
Likewise a gap in literature can be referred to as something that hasn't been
researched on previously in the literature reviewed (Macintosh 2009).
In terms of filing the gap with results of this research; (Dongwoo et al.
2010) discussed the issues that an enterprise will face from not using ontology
in enterprise modelling and proposed a way out by using three levels of
enterprise architecture ontologies but did not use any of the tools (LEADing
Practice and Essential Project) that will be used in this research, which makes
this research fulfil a gap in the literature.

15
Another literature by (Shankararaman and Kazmi 2011) highlighted the
issues that arises when EA and BPM are not integrated but they did not
propose ontology and semantics as a way to solve this issues raised by them,
rather they propose a way out by using a synergistic framework.
In terms of the literature discussed on ontology and semantics, there are
no conflicts between them because they all agree on the benefits that ontology
and semantics will bring to an organisation.

16
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the method and strategy applied for this research will be
discussed. As discussed in the first chapter, the main aim of this research is to
understand how ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling is being aided
by LEADing Practice and Essential Project. There are different types of
research strategy and technique which varies based on the type of research
but because of the focus of this research there won't be time to explain all the
types of research methodology rather the focus of this section is to discuss the
chosen methodology and justify it as compared to other suitable methods.
The success of any research depends on the research method used
because a research should deliver its purpose and meet its objective. To
achieve this, the right methodology and technique must be used. Also in order
to maintain a valid research goal, a research needs to have a well-defined
research problem (Kothari 2004). These problems acoording to (Kothari 2004)
and how it is related to this research are identified below:
 The problem must a group or an individual (Everyone related to the
enterprise architecture field in this case).
 There must be some set of objectives to be achieved (The objectives
discussed in chapter one)
 There must be alternatives for achieving this objectives
 There must be a certain amount of doubt in the mind of the person
carrying out the research on how to select alternatives.
 There must be an environment to which the difficulty is applied
(Enterprise Architecture Environment)
The above are the well- defined research problem according to (Kothari 2004).
3.2 Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are:

17
i. To investigate the concept of ontology and semantics in enterprise
modelling
ii. To investigate the contribution of LEADing Practice and Essential Project
to semantics and ontology in enterprise modelling
iii. To Compare enterprise modelling in LEADing Practice with Essential
Project
iv. To investigate the integration of business process management with
enterprise architecture.
3.3 Research Strategy
There is a common mistake among researchers that a research strategy
has to be either quantitative or qualitative because so many believe that it is the
research strategy that determines if their research is quantitative or qualitative.
Although it can be said that surveys are related to quantitative research and
case studies are related to qualitative research by students but that is not
always the case. It is not only the research strategy that determines if a
research is qualitative or quantitative, what determines this is your research
strategy, data collection techniques and the research objectives (Biggam 2011).
3.3.1 Case Study
For this research case study strategy will be applied. (Yin 2009)
described a case study method as a method that can be used in numerous
situations to contribute to knowledge of an individual group while Biggam (2011)
said a case study is the study of one or more example of a particular type of
something. (Yin 2009) further said that the case study method can be use if the
researcher is planning on investigating a phenomena within a certain group of
people. The main aim of research is to look into how ontology and semantics in
enterprise modellling is being fulilled with LEADing Practice and Essential
Project. The use of these two solutions made the type of case study in this
research a multiple case study because according to (Yin 2009) a case study
research can be a single case study or multiple case study but the benefits from
using a multiple case study is higher than that of a single case study.
After selecting the suitable case study research the next thing is to
choose the type of case study research that meets the purpose of my research

18
and according to (Biggam 2011) there are three types to choose from in a case
study research as shown in the diagram below:
Figure 4: The types of Case Study Research (Biggam 2011)
Descriptive case study is used when producing the full description of a
phenomenom with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of that particular
phenomenom.
From the above the type of case study research that willl be used in this
research is the descriptive case study because the aim of this research is to get
more understanding of how ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling is
being aided by the use of LEADing Practice and Essential Project.
3.3.2 Justification for the use of Case Study
The objectives of this research mentioned in the previous chapters will
be fulfilled using the case study strategy. According (Yin 2012) to there are
three situations where case study method could be used as a research method:
The first and most important decision to choose a case study method like other
research methods is determined by the kind of research question that the
research wish to address. Case study can be used when the research has a
descriptive question like ("what is happening or has happened") or an
explanatory question like (how or why did something happen). In contrast to this
the other type of question that relate to producing a particular outcome can be
done using experiments or quasi experiments.

19
The second reason why a case study could be used according to (Yin
2012) is when the data is being collected in a natural setting like data from how
a particular phenomenon is impacting a group of people rather than derived
data like responses to questionnaire in a quantitative study or the response to
researcher's instrument in an experiment.
The third and final reason according to (Yin 2012)is when conducting
evaluations. Case study has been found very useful when doing evaluation
research because evaluation takes place within an organisational context.
The three reasons above are suited to this particular research because
the research question fits into the first reason as to when to use a case study
because neither experiment nor quasi experiment is going to be carried out in
this research. The second reason is that the data used in this research matches
the one described in (Yin 2012) for a case study research that is data collected
from a natural setting.
3.4 Sources of Data Collection
3.4.1 Case Study Data Collection
According to (Yin 2012) direct observations, interviews, archival records,
documents, participant-observation and physical artefacts are the six major
sources evidence that data could be collected from when doing case study
research. Classical case study research use data collection methods like
surveys, interviews and the rest but this research is based mainly on secondary
data and interview with subjects that have impacted on the case studies.
Secondary source of data include published journals, books, conference papers,
electronic resources and catalogues (Biggam 2011).
LEADing Practice and Essential Projects website was also used as these
represent authentic source of information about the two case studies being
discussed and were of great help in fulfilling the objectives of this research.
The major advantage of using secondary source of information is that the
information required is always readily available and makes the researcher
complete the research within a short period of time in cases where there is so
much to be covered within a short period of time. Secondary sources also offer
cheap form of data which reduces ethical considerations than other data
generation methods (Biggam 2011).

20
3.4.2 Interviews
Interview in case study research is slightly different from other types of
research strategy, in a case study research the aim of the interview is to get
more details about the phenomenon in study (Bryman 2012).
The kind of interview used in this research is a semi-structured interview
because this kind of interview offers flexibility and confirms what is already
known but offers room for learning. The questions asked were to substantiate
the discussion that was made during the case study report of this research.
3.5 Framework for Data Analysis
Analysing case study evidence is still a bit difficult because the methods
are not well defined unlike other kinds of research. According to (Yin 2009)
there are four analysis strategies and five techniques for analysing case studies,
these techniques and strategies could be used in combination because they are
not mutually exclusive.
For this research the analysis strategy that will be used is the "relying on
theoretical propositions" and "developing a case description". The relying on
theoretical propositions strategy will be used first because the data in this
research is based on theories so this strategy will be used as a guide to help
focus attention on the important data and ignore the less important one. This
will be followed by the developing a case description strategy which is a
descriptive framework for organizing the case study. To support this, a semi-
structured interview with subjects that have experienced knowledge on the case
studies will be carried out but this interview will be to substantiate the secondary
sources.
The diagram in figure 5 explains how the analyses will be done using the two
case studies (LEADing Practice and Essential Project).

21
Figure 5: Designing Case Studies (Andrews 2011)
The diagram above shows an adapted version of (Yin 2009) case study designs
for (Biggs 1999) in (Andrews 2011) and part of this can be applied in this
research. After using the two analysis strategies the next thing will be to apply
the technique for data analysis in case study and like the strategies the
techniques are mutually exclusive also but the technique that will be adopted in
this research is called "explanation building" and according to (Yin 2009) it is a
technique whereby the goal is to analyse the case study data by building
explanation about the case.
LEADing Practice Process framework will be analysed and will be explained as
the case study and then I will write the individual case report. This will be
followed by the case report of Essential Project Meta-Model. In doing this
objective 1 and 2 will be answered in the report being generated while objective
3 will be on the findings of the case report.
3.6 Limitations and Potential Problems
The use of the case study strategy in this research has been well thought
about. Although some might argue that a survey or an experiment research
strategy could answer the research question and fulfil the objectives of this
research because one of the limitations of case study according to (Kothari
2004) is that case studies are not comparable. Also (Yin 2009) said that the
case study is a method whereby theory is modified by conclusions from a series
of case studies. The issue here is that there has been a problem with using one
case study, however this research will be using two case studies (LEADing
Practice and Essential Project) to see how they both help in enterprise
modelling thereby making comparisons between them which will solve the

22
limitation mentioned by (Kothari 2004) and also conclusions can be made
because it is not a single case study.

23
CHAPTER 4
CASE STUDY REPORT
Reason behind Choosing LEADing Practice and Essential Project
The literature review looked into the previous literature on the key concepts
around the enterprise architecture domain particularly on enterprise architecture
frameworks. These frameworks are used as guidance for coming up with
enterprise architecture models but over the years they have been issues within
the enterprise architecture domain that these frameworks are not meeting up
with the aim of enterprise architecture (Sessions 2008). This is why we have to
look beyond the traditional enterprise architecture frameworks hence the reason
for selecting LEADing Practice and Essential Project as the cases studies and
look at how they will help in enterprise modelling.
4.1 Case Study 1: LEADing Practice
4.1.1 Overview of LEADing Practice
Layered Enterprise Architecture Development (LEAD) called LEADing
Practice is "recognised as a paradigm shift" in the field of enterprise architecture,
enterprise modelling and enterprise engineering because it brings all these
fields together as a result of years of industry research and expert consensus
(LEADing Practice 2014).
As discussed in the literature review by (Buuren 2004) the problem of no
standard enterprise architecture description language for enterprise modelling is
really affecting enterprise architects and the enterprise architecture field as a
whole, this is one of the many areas LEADing Practice intend to come in and
help the enterprise architecture field as a whole.
The major strength of LEADing Practice goes beyond just using its
frameworks but the ability of its reference content to help using three major
principles according to (LEADing Practice 2014):
i. The way of Thinking: This is the starting point in LEADing Practice and
very essential. A LEAD expert should be able to analyse, appraise,

24
approximate, assess and capture objects while also being able to plan,
design, scheme and structure in order to understand the underlying
thought.
ii. The way of Working: This is the next step and it is equally important like
the way of working and in fact the LEAD expert should be able to
translate the way of thinking into the way of working. Due to this
dependency, it is important to perform the functions in the way of thinking
correctly so as to enable the LEAD expert to organize, classify, align,
arrange, quantify, recommend and select objects in a structured way that
will enable the objects to be de-composed or composed together.
iii. The way of Modelling: The way of modelling is the logical level where
uniform and formal description of the model objects and artefacts takes
place using decomposition and composition modelling techniques at the
different architecture layers. In LEADing Practice the three architecture
layers are:
 Business Layer
 Application Layer
 Technology Layer
The layers above are similar to those of (The Open Group 2013) that
was discussed in the literature review; the only difference is that the information
system architecture layer in TOGAF has been replaced with the application
layer in LEADing Practice but they still have the same content.
The combination of these three principles is why LEADing Practice is
bringing about innovations in organizations, helping organizations to transform
and also making sure they deliver value.
(LEADing Practice 2014)
4.1.2 Ontology and Semantics in LEADing Practice
In chapter 2 the importance of ontology and semantics to enterprise
modelling was reviewed but this section will discuss how LEADing Practice
uses ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling.
Ontology and Semantics is the basis of all LEADing Practice enterprise
standards because these standards are independent of any vendor and are all

25
built on reusable and repeatable patterns which can be used by any kind of
organization (big or small) regardless of its services or products. LEADing
Practice currently has 94 different enterprise standards in 6 areas. The six
areas are:
i. Enterprise Management Standards: The enterprise management
standards in LEADing Practice is
ii. Enterprise Modelling Standards
iii. Enterprise Engineering Standards
iv. Enterprise Architecture Standards
v. Enterprise Information and Technology Standards
vi. Enterprise Transformation and Innovation Standards.
The above six are the enterprise standards that LEADing Practice comprises of
although there are also industry standards for various industries but the focus of
this research is not on that rather it is on enterprise modelling but because
ontology and semantics was the foundation for designing these standards, a
discipline in enterprise engineering can be used in enterprise modelling
standards to facilitate it (LEADing Practice 2014). This will solve the
interoperability issue that was raised by (Dongwoo et al. 2010) in the literature
review.
4.1.3 Enterprise Modelling in LEADing Practices

26
Figure 6: Enterprise Modelling, Enterprise Engineering and Enterprise Architecture
(LEADing Practice 2014)
4.1.3.1 Enterprise Modelling in LEADing Practice
Enterprise Modelling: The field of enterprise modelling is important as it
has been shown in the literature review section and a good enterprise
architecture will depends on how good the enterprise modelling is carried out.
In LEADing Practice, there are 18 enterprise modelling disciplines and
areas but because of the focus of this research only three will be discussed and
they are:
i. Drivers and Forces Modelling Reference Content: Capturing internal
and external forces as well as drivers is an important aspect when
modelling an enterprise. In LEADing Practice the external and internal
driver and force is often referred to as a condition that has an impact
(force) or motivates (driver) the organization to help them define their
direction.
Due to the explanation above, we cannot neglect the importance of this
discipline in enterprise modelling because it is the foundation of
enterprise modelling. The list of the Meta objects that the drivers and
forces relate to base on (LEADing Practice 2014) are:
 Vision and Mission
 Strategy (Strategic Business Objective)
 Goal
 Objective
 Value Driver
 Performance Driver
 Business Area
 Business Group
 Business Service
 Service Owner
 Process Owner
 Application/System Owner
 Data Owner
 Infrastructure Owner

27
ii. Requirement Modelling: Requirement modelling in LEADing Practice is
done through a lifecycle of requirement analysis, requirement design,
implementation and then the governance of these requirements which is
triggered by an insight, event or condition within the business (LEADing
Practice 2014).
What this means is that before the requirement modelling can be carried
out, it has to be activated by a business event within the organization.
The LEADing Practice Requirement Modelling Reference Content is
classified into two as stated below:
 High-Level requirement: These are business specific requirements
 Detailed requirements: These are function specific requirements
and are generally related to product requirement
The decomposition and composition of requirements is shown in appendix.
iii. Value Model Reference Content: The value model reference content is
used by practitioners working with value aspects so as to define the
modelling principles to make an objective assessment. While working
with the value aspects, LEAD practitioners must be able to translate the
"way of working" into "way of modelling" which always include part of the
following according to (LEADing Practice 2014):
 Expressiveness: this is the degree to which the modelling
technique is able represent any number or kind of layered
domains which is business, application and technology in this
case.
 Arbitrariness: this is the flexibility that someone has when
decomposing and composing different models on the same
domain. For example if we are decomposing the business area
into business compliance on the business architecture layer.
 Comprehensibility: This is the way by which the participants
understand the way of working and the way of modelling. This
simply means every participant should be able to understand your
way of working and modelling.

28
 Coherence: This is the extent to which sub-models of a way of
modelling constitute a whole.
 Completeness: this is the extent to which all necessary
components of the application domain are represented in the way
of modelling. The emphasis is on the application domain here.
 Efficiency: Like every other good practice, efficiency is an
important concept. This is the extent to which the modelling steps
uses resources like time, people and finance.
 Effectiveness: this is the extent to which the modelling principles
achieve its goals
 Audit: the extent to which the end results of the models achieve its
goal. i.e. meets the all the requirements of the enterprise in all the
layers (business, application and technology).
Relating the above concepts to information modelling in
(Scheruhn, Von Rosing and Fallon 2014) work the thinking has to be
done on how the other parts of enterprise modelling fits into information
modelling. Although data modelling is always said to be the only part of
information modelling but it was shown in (Scheruhn, Von Rosing and
Fallon 2014) that process modelling, value modelling or service oriented
modelling are brought together under information modelling because
information modelling according to (Scheruhn, Von Rosing and Fallon
2014) is not only made up of data modelling alone but also other aspects
of modelling mentioned above. This was much more explainable in
LEADing Practice because the enterprise modelling standard
encompasses information modelling, value modelling and service model
bringing them all under one standard which augments the ontology and
semantics in LEADing Practice. This also shows the enterprise standards
can work together.

29
4.2 Case Study 2: Essential Project Report
4.2.1 Overview of Essential Project
Essential project is an open source enterprise architecture tool
developed by Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd to help in designing,
implementing and managing enterprise architectures. In this case study, the
focus is on the essential meta-model and how it is being used in enterprise
modelling although there is also the essential architecture manager which is
more of a reference implementation of the essential meta-model as shown in
figure 7 (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2014).
Figure 7: Components of Essential Project (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2014)
The motivation to develop a tool that will be used in enterprise modelling
came because most organizations were using different methodologies and
frameworks to develop their enterprise architecture with most of these methods
not mature and incomplete meta-models. Also there was the need for a low
maintenance tool that will address all aspect of business and IT architecture,
much easier to learn and understand, that uses ontology and semantics in
enterprise modelling to provide efficient results within a short period of time.
These were the reasons that motivated Enterprise Architecture Solutions to
come up with Essential Projects as a tool used in developing and managing
enterprise operating models and strategies.
4.2.2 Ontology and Semantics in Essential Project
In the previous section the motivations behind the development of
Essential Project was discussed. Relating how Essential Project solves the
ontology and semantics issues that were raised in the literature review is also
an essential part of this research.
In designing Essential Projects it was discovered that most of the other
meta-models like Zachman for example always have a pre-defined building-

30
blocks and this will constrain the meta-model and make changes difficult which
is not the best because change is an essential part of an enterprise that has to
be considered highly when doing enterprise modelling. This is an important
aspect of Essential Project because it moved enterprise architecture tools away
from documentation and graphical based approach (like using the TOGAF ADM
phases to come up with document to model the enterprise) to knowledge
representation using Protégé which is an ontological knowledge representation
platform which is also open source (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2013).
4.2.3 Enterprise Modelling in Essential Project
Enterprise Modelling in Essential Project is done using the essential
meta-model which is an ontology for the field of enterprise architecture and was
developed with the help of enterprise architecture frameworks although it has
been improved upon. Figure 8 shows the essential meta-model core concepts
and support concepts (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2013).
Figure 8: Essential Concepts (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2013)
From the above diagram there are four core concepts and six support concepts
in the meta-model. The core concept comprises of four architectural layers with
each layers having an abstraction level of conceptual, physical and logical. The
Essential meta-model will be described in detail with examples because they

31
are the basis for enterprise modelling in Essential Project and also the ontology
and semantics cannot be achieved by neglecting the meta-model
i. Business Modelling: In this layer every knowledge that is related to the
objectives capabilities, people and processes of the enterprise is
captured. The business layer in Essential Project is divided into three
abstraction views:
 Business Conceptual: This is the place where the "what" in
terms of business is defined like "what is the business capability".
The business objective is also defined in this stage up until the
role types in the enterprise. In the pre-defined meta-model, there
are seven business role types but this can be edited and new
roles can be added using the instance browser on protégé
(Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2009).
An example of the business conceptual is shown in figure 9:
Figure 9: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Conceptual modelling in Protégé.
In the above diagram the conceptual model of the business has 9
areas under it. The business role type has seven roles pre-defined
but can be modified if there is need providing more flexibility.
 Business Logical: The business logical layer is where the "how"
in business terms is defined. This is the layer where "how" the

32
"what" will be achieved. This layer consists of 12 important
concepts including but not limited to business role, business
process and business rule (Enterprise Architecture Solutions
2009).
Figure 10: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Logical modelling in Protégé.
Figure 10 shows the section covered by the logical layer. There
are 12 concepts in all but business event is sub-divided into two
which are "external business event" and "time based business
event". The business process type is sub-divided into 3 which are
business activity, business process and business task. The
business role is sub-divided into two which are group business
role and individual business role. The logical business model is
where the business process flow is created.
 Business Physical: In this layer this where the actual
implementation takes place. Based on business, this is where the
logical processes mentioned earlier are implemented and who
(individuals or teams) will perform them. (Enterprise Architecture
Solutions 2009).

33
Figure 11: Snapshot of Essential Project Business Physical modelling in Protégé.
Figure 11 shows the concepts under the business physical modelling in
Essential Project. There are three concepts in all: the actor, the physical
process type and the site.
Figure 12: The Business Modelling Overview within the three layers
(Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2009)

34
ii. Application Modelling Layer: Modelling in the application layer has to
deal with the behaviour of the systems that are in use in the enterprise
and the functionality they provide to support the enterprise. Just like the
business layer, the application layer is split into three views too which will
be explained below.
 Application Conceptual: Here the "what" in terms of the application
is defined for example what application is required within each
business domain described in the business layer (Enterprise
Architecture Solutions 2009).
Figure 13: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Conceptual modelling in Protégé.
Figure 13 shows the application conceptual modelling
environment in Essential Project. The first part is the application
architecture objective which deals with the strategic goal
associated with the application architecture of the enterprise. The
second part is the application architecture principle and this has to
deal with how applications are delivered to the enterprise whether
they build it in-house or purchase packaged applications. The third
part is the application capability that deals with providing the
abstract perspective of the functional behaviour that is required to
support the business. The last part is the application driver.
 Application Logical: This where "how" is defined in terms of
application used to support the enterprise. This is also the layer
that shows "how" the "what" will be achieved. Primarily it will

35
consist of the functions that applications need to provide to realise
capabilities and the detail of the application that provides these
functions (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2009).
Figure 14 shows the application logical modelling environment.
The application service is used to model a logical grouping of
application functions. The application function is the functional
behaviour of an application. The Application family is the place
where an application with the same provider is grouped, for
example SAP R/3 has different application modules like HR, SD,
FI, CO and MM will be grouped under SAP.
Figure 14: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Logical modelling in Protégé.
 Application Physical: This has to deal with the actual
implementation of the application that provides functions and
services to the enterprise. Figure 15 shows the application
physical modelling environment in Essential project. There are two
sub-categories under the application physical: application
deployment and application deployment group.

36
Figure 15: Snapshot of Essential Project Application Physical modelling in Protégé.
Figure 16: The Application Modelling Overview within the three layers
iii. Information Modelling Layer: This is where the elements relating to
information and data are captured in Essential Projects. Just like the

37
previous meta-models, information modelling is also divided into three
view which will be explained below:
 Information Conceptual: This is the first stage and it is where the
"what" is defined in terms of information concepts that are
required within each business domain. Figure 17 shows the
information conceptual modelling environment in Essential Project.
There are five key areas under it: The information architecture
objective is a strategic goal associated with the information
architecture. The information architecture principle is the high level
rule that governs the way information concepts are managed by
the enterprise. The information concept is referred to as the
information element that is used by the enterprise in running its
business (Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2009).
Figure 17: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Conceptual modelling in Protégé.
 Information Logical: This is the area where we define "how". It is
where we define "how" information concepts are used. Figure 18
shows the information logical modelling environment in Essential
Project. The information view is the logical view of an information
concept. The information representation means using a specific
technology like relational database, XML schema, NoSQl etc. The
primitive data object deals with the kind of data object like string,

38
integer, float and Boolean (Enterprise Architecture Solutions
2009) .
Figure 18: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Logical modelling in Protégé.
 Information Physical: In this layer the physical information view
captures the store where a particular view of information is
managed. Figure 19 shows the information physical modelling
environment in Essential Project. The information store describes
the physical instance of an information representation and the role
that particular information store plays. The information store
defines the physical deployment of an information representation
and captures the deployment role for that particular store. The
physical data object defines the physical data that is stored in an
information store.

39
Figure 19: Snapshot of Essential Project Information Physical modelling in Protégé.
Figure 20: The Information Modelling Overview within the three layers
iv. Technology Modelling: This is concerned with the technology (both
software and hardware technology) that provides and support the
systems that are in use within the enterprise. Just like the other meta-
models the technology layer is also divided into three (Enterprise
Architecture Solutions 2009):

40
 Technology Conceptual: This is the area where we define the
what. In technology terms this refers to the capabilities that are
required to provide the appropriate technology infrastructure for
the enterprise. For example server virtualization is a technology
capability that describes what is needed but it does not go further
than this. Technology architecture objective is the strategic goal
associated with the technology architecture of an enterprise.
Technology architecture principle refers to the high level rules that
govern the way in which the technology capabilities are delivered
by the enterprise. The technology domain provides a way of
grouping technology into different areas (Enterprise Architecture
Solutions 2009). Figure 21 shows the technology conceptual
modelling environment in Essential Project.
Figure 21: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Conceptual modelling in Protégé.
 Technology Logical: This is where the "how is defined. It is "how"
the "what" will be achieved. In terms of technology, this deals with
the classes of technology and the technology products that will be
used to achieve the "what" explained in technology conceptual.
The technology component is used to describe a particular class
of technology that is used to provide a technology capability. The
technology function is used to describe the functionality that a
technology component should/can provide. The technology

41
provider is used to capture a technology product that is being
used to provide technology components in the architecture
(Enterprise Architecture Solutions 2009). Figure 22 shows a
technology logical modelling environment in Essential project.
Figure 22: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Logical Modelling in Protégé.
 Technology Physical: This layer captures all the implementations
and deployments of technology in the enterprise. It captures the
instances of technology products and where they are physically
deployed. Figure 23 shows the technology physical modelling
environment in Essential Project.

42
Figure 23: Snapshot of Essential Project Technology Physical modelling in Protégé.
Figure 24: The Technology Modelling Overview within the three layers
Enterprise modelling in Essential project has to go through all the layers
described in this section to produce the enterprise model but there are still the
support concepts that depend on the core concepts.
The support concepts explained below are also important because this is mainly
used to explain things to people outside the architectural world.

43
i. Strategy Management: Strategy management has to deal how the future
state of an organization is managed and the road map for achieving it.
ii. Change Management: This has to deal with how the dependencies that
impact the people, processes, and IT of an enterprise are managed
during change.
iii. Service Delivery: This has to deal with managing the dependencies that
exist between people, processes and IT in support of the on-going
operation of an enterprise.
iv. Security Management: Security is an important aspect of any enterprise
so this deals with managing the requirements, design and
implementation of the security policies of an enterprise.
v. Standards Management: This provides the ability to manage data quality,
ownership, application, technology, process standards across the
organization.
vi. Cost management: this offers support for managing the cost of elements
in the core meta-models like the application or business contract cost.
The above are some of the support concepts in Essential Project but the job of
Essential Project is not finished here as it has the capability to do reporting and
a special tool called Essential Viewer for producing decision-support views for
any stakeholder. However the objective of this research is not tailored towards
that aspect and it gives a room for future work that could be done in this area
because the meta-model concepts discussed in this research serves as a basis
for constructing the views.
4.3 Cross-Case Findings and Discussion
This section will discuss the findings in this research. The findings from the two
case studies were substantiated by a semi-structured interview, the full
interview questions and transcript is added in appendix C. The interview serves
as a form of primary data but not in the form of a full qualitative method because
the use of interviews in case studies can serve as a support to the other data
collection sources used in the case study report (Yin 2009).

44
Interview Results
Questions First Participant (LEADing Practice Based)
1: What is your view
on ontology and
semantics in
enterprise
modelling?
It is an important concept and so many project
implementations fail within an enterprise because they
lack ontology and semantics. It also aids
communication because ontology can be discussed
from one subject perspective and cross- subject
perspective.
Q2: How do you think
LEADing Practice
Contribute to
Ontology and
Semantics in
enterprise
modelling?
In LEADing Practice, there are 94 enterprise standards
in 6 areas and all these standards are built first by
defining the ontology of that standard. We then use
semantic relations to define the semantic nature
between two objects and their relationship within the
enterprise standards so ontology and semantics is an
important part of LEADing Practice.
Q3: What is your
view on information
and process
modelling being of
help in enterprise
modelling
The LEAD concept can be used to connect information
models with process models. SAP is already using this
for execution in their ERP package so it is valid and it
works because it is already being applied in the market.
Q4: To what extent
will LEADing Practice
bridge the gap
between EA and BPM
The use of LEADing Practice will totally bridge the gap
between EA and BPM because the concepts (ontology
and semantics) we discussed earlier will facilitate this.
Table 1: First Participant Interview Summary

45
Question Second Participant (Essential Project based)
Q1: What is your view
on ontology and
semantics in enterprise
modelling
For many years people have been creating models
to try and describe what it is they want to do and
what it is they are doing and a lot of the time they
have used some sort of graphical tools as a way of
doing that but the problem is that there is a mix-up
between the captured information and the
information presented.
The use of ontology and semantics in enterprise
modelling is important in terms of how we capture
whatever it is about our enterprise because it
separates the captured information from the
presented information
Q2: How do you think
Essential Project
contribute to ontology
and semantics in
enterprise modelling?
A lot of EA frameworks have some sort of meta-
models which encode semantics. The essential
meta model started with 40 meta-classes but it's
over 500 now and this happened because of
semantics. Essential meta-model is the richest
among all EA frameworks now.
Q3: What is your view
on information and
process modelling
being of help in
enterprise modelling
Process modelling in my view has to do with the
process of what people or systems do in order to
get things done in the enterprise.
Information modelling is also very important for the
business and applications because applications
uses data to create information
Q4: To what extent will
Essential Project bridge
the gap between EA
and BPM
This is more of a noise than the actual fact but
essential project through its meta-model will bridge
the gap between EA and BPM.
Table 2: Second Participant Interview Summary

46
The above tables’ shows the results of the interview carried out; it is used as a
form of primary data to substantiate the evidence on the case study report.
Finding 1
Enterprise Modelling in LEADing Practice is more of a reference content to help
in building the enterprise model with the help of the detailed processes of its
framework. In the LEADing Practice based interview, it was discovered that the
enterprise standards in LEADing Practice were built by first "defining the
ontology of that standard". This was used to develop each of the six enterprise
standards then the objects were defined, followed by the groups, categories and
the areas involved. After this was done, they started finding the relationships
between different objects among the enterprise standards; this was done using
semantic relations to find the semantic nature between two objects and their
relationship.
There is a relationship between LEADing Practice, Essential Project and
TOGAF (The Open Group 2009) explained in the literature review but LEADing
Practice and Essential Project can be used for not only enterprise architecture
but also business process management because not only will LEADing Practice
identify the need for change, it also has the ability to make this change actualize
through its reference content.
Finding 2
Essential Project is a complete enterprise modelling tool because it provides
both the framework in its meta-model and the environment to use this
framework. The protégé environment as shown in the case study report is
where the essential meta-model is loaded unto to begin enterprise modelling.
Essential project currently has 500 meta-classes embedded into their meta-
model as compared to other enterprise architecture methodologies with an
average of 40.
In the Essential Project based interview, it was discovered that there are three
main questions that come up in enterprise modelling
i. Where do I start modelling?
ii. When do I stop?
iii. How do I know if it is enough?

47
The above three questions come up because people just want to capture
everything and put it in their repository but the problem with this is that they
won't get any value from it so the best way is to start from what you need to
understand now and what questions do I need to be able to answer. If these
two are understood properly then you can work out what you need to show on
the enterprise model that will answer those questions which will eventually
guide us on what to capture thereby solving the issue of capturing everything.
This will them give us a good enterprise model that can be used to support
business processes.
Essential Project also provides guidance on how to implement or develop
specific architectures as shown in the case study report above where each
architecture layer is explained. This will improve on the issue that (Minoli 2008)
raise about enterprise architecture frameworks not providing guidance on how
to implement or develop specific architecture.
Finding 3: Comparison of LEADing Practice with Essential Project
LEADing Practice Essential Project
It does not have its own environment
for modelling but its enterprise
modelling standard can be used within
the essential modelling environment
It is a complete package with its meta-
model and an environment to
implement this meta-model
Enterprise Modelling is based on its
enterprise modelling standard
explained in the case study report.
Enterprise Modelling is based on the
essential meta-model
The enterprise modelling standard can be used to together with the essential
meta-model to provide a better enterprise model. This will not take away from
the meta-model but will only improve the outcome.
Table 3: Summary of Comparison between LEADing Practice and Essential Project
Finding 4
In Buuren (2004) it was said there is no standard enterprise architecture
description language that can be used in enterprise modelling and that
enterprise architect always come up with their own modelling techniques. This
is an area that both Essential Project and LEADing Practice intend to solve
because there is a common language to describe the enterprise in the

48
reference content of LEADing Practice and in the meta-models of Essential
Project.
Summary of Findings
The findings in this section have been able to integrate the data from the
interviews and the case study report. The interviews have been analyzed and
only key information have been presented in the tables above due to the length
of the interviews, however full transcripts of the interviews is available in the
appendix.

49
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
This research started with the introduction chapter the background into
the research was discussed. The research focus highlighted the problem which
this research tends to solve and also the reason behind the research question
with the research objectives. This chapter is followed by the literature review
where literatures' relating to the domain of enterprise modelling is discussed
and the gap in the literature that this research will address was also mentioned.
This research has also been able to use the descriptive case study to
describe in detail ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling according to
the salient concepts of LEADing Practice and Essential project with the aim of
gaining a deeper understanding of how these concepts improve enterprise
modelling.
This section of the research looks at how the objectives of this research have
been carried out and if the research question was answered and also a
reflection on the process of this research.
5.1 Research Objectives
Objective 1: To investigate Ontology and Semantics in Enterprise Modelling
The need and importance for ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling
was first brought up in the literature review of this research putting them into
context. In the case study report, each case was used to explain how they use
semantics and ontology.
Objective 2: To investigate the contribution of LEADing Practice and
Essential Project to semantics and ontology in enterprise modelling
After explaining the role of ontology and semantics in enterprise modelling, the
next thing was to see how the two case studies use semantics and ontology in
enterprise modelling.
For LEADing Practice, the way in which their enterprise standards are built with
specific emphasis on enterprise modelling proves this and the interview session
also confirms this.

50
For Essential Project, the use of knowledge representation and its over 500
meta-classes confirms its foundation of ontology and semantics while using it in
enterprise modelling.
Objective 3: To compare enterprise modelling in LEADing Practices with
Essential Project
The comparison between LEADing Practice and Essential Project can be found
in findings one and two where it clearly highlights the results from the case
study and the private interview likewise finding 3 shows a table overview of the
comparison and similarity.
Objective 4: To investigate the integration of business process management
with enterprise architecture
This is the last objective and it is also an important one because of the noise it
generates within the enterprise architecture community nowadays. From the
result of the interviews the gap will be bridged using LEADing Practice and
Essential Project.
5.2 Evaluation of Thesis
This section is based on different issues and reflections that happened during
the different stages of this research.
The first part was choosing the right methodology for doing this research.
Although it was pretty straight forward that the case study methodology will be
used because the objectives of the research does not require an experiment or
survey to be carried out by the researcher. The majority of the data was
collected through secondary sources even though primary data was collected in
form of interviews but of the three subjects to be interviewed only two was
actually done. This is because the subjects are not geographically located in the
same area as the researcher which proved difficult to get a hold of them and
there was no alternative within the time frame of the research. The information
from the two participants was very helpful and it provided a better
understanding of the case studies and also supports what has been written in
the reports.
It was also difficult finding supporting evidence on the case study strategy for
the field of computing because the few published books on case study is on
social science although some academic theories from Yin, Biggam and

51
Flyvberg helped with the theoretical explanation and the use of case studies but
compared with other research strategies it was not enough.
5.3 Future Research Ideas
This research has looked at how ontology and semantics in enterprise
modelling is aided by LEADing Practices and Essential Project using a
descriptive case study with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding as to
what extent they help in enterprise modelling which is what a descriptive case
study is most suitable for but there is still room for future work to improve on this
research.
For further research ideas, the enterprise standards and the essential
meta-models can be used in an industry like example (SAP Global Bike
Industry) to help with producing a model of the enterprise with ontology and
semantics incorporated. This will also show a practical example of how the gap
between BPM and EA is bridged using LEADing Practices and Essential Project.
LEADing Practices has 94 enterprise standards in 6 areas but this research has
only been able to look into only one area in detail which is enterprise modelling.
The future work will look into the other areas in detail and how they complement
enterprise modelling standard that was discussed in this research.
Essential Project meta-model will then be used in conjunction with LEADing
Practice to implement it, this will provide a much richer enterprise model.
Although a work has been done with the LEADing Practice concept by
(Scheruhn, Von Rosing and Fallon 2014) but it was implemented in ARIS which
is total BPM tool.
The use of essential meta-model in conjunction with LEADing Practices will
generate a good business process model and notation of the process captured
in the meta-model. This will make it easy not to neglect the business
architecture and bridge the gap between BPM and EA.
Also Essential Project has a concept called Essential Viewer which is used to
help business and IT stakeholders view and analyse reports and also in
decision making. Making the views is something that will depend on the concept
of ontology and semantics within the essential meta-model discussed in this
case study report which sets this aspect into an important area for further
research.

52
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