Exercise: Case GloLog

The case GloLog is an exercise in producing the essential model of an enterprise that offers the transporting and storing of tangible things: goods, containers, ships. The CM, PM and FM of the GloLog organisation are presented and discussed. Emphasis is put on four topics. The first is the unavoidable need to conceive notions that are not present in the narrative description but that are nevertheless ontologically crucial: the container content and the ship content. The second is the necessary existence of four distinct, only ‘loosely coupled’, business processes. The necessity stems from the incompatibility of the case cycles in these processes: sale, purchase, container content and ship content. The third topic is the distribution of responsibilities: the ontologically necessary ones, as represented in particular by the CM, cannot easily be traced back to the narrative description of the case. The fourth topic is the current implementation of the essential model. Without the help of the essential model, it is almost impossible to clarify the role of the many parties involved and the many document kinds used (respectively to point at their redundancy).