Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World (UML Version)

In 1995, David Hay published Data Model Patterns: Conventions of Thought - the groundbreaking book on how to use standard data models to describe the standard business situations. Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World builds on the concepts presented there, adds 15 years of practical experience, and presents a more comprehensive view.

This model addresses your enterprise via four levels of abstraction:

Level 0: An abstract template that underlies the Level 1 model, plus two meta models: Information Resources and Accounting. Each of these itself represents the rest of the enterprise, so to model it is to “model a model”, so to speak.

Level 1: An enterprise model that is generic enough to apply to any company or government agency, but concrete enough to be readily understood by all. It describes people and organizations, geographic locations, (physical) assets, activities, and time.

Level 2: A more detailed model describing specific functional areas: facilities and other addresses, human resources, communications and marketing, contracts, manufacturing, and the laboratory.

Level 3: Examples of the details that can be added to a model to address what is truly unique in a particular industry. Here you see how to address the unique bits in areas as diverse as criminal justice, microbiology, banking, oil field production, and highway maintenance.