This is  the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1996). Learning the basics of a modeling technique is not the same as learning how to use and apply it. To develop a data model of an organization is to gain insights into its nature that do not come easily. Indeed, analysts are often expected to understand subtleties of an organization's structure that may have evaded people who have worked there for years.   Here's help for those analysts who have learned the basics of data modeling (or "entity/relationship modeling") but who need to obtain the insights required to prepare a good model of a real business.   Structures common to many types of business are analyzed in areas such as accounting, material requirements planning, process manufacturing, contracts, laboratories, and documents.     In each chapter, high-level data models are drawn from the following business areas:   The Enterprise and Its World The Things of the Enterprise Procedures and Activities Contracts Accounting The Laboratory Material Requirements Planning Process Manufacturing Documents Lower-Level Conventions  

Table of Contents:
Figures and Tables         xiii Foreword          xvii Preface          xix   Chapter 1: Introduction         1 Data Modeling's Promise–And Failure   1 About Modeling Conventions   4 These Models and Your Organization   6 Who Should Read This Book?   7   Chapter 2: Data Modeling Conventions         10 Syntactic Conventions 10 Positional Conventions 16 Semantic Conventions 18 References 22   Chapter 3: The Enterprise and its World         23 Parties 23 Employee Assignments 28 Organizations 31 Addresses 33 Geographic Locations 36 Reporting Relationships 40 About Types 44 About Points of View 45 In Summary 45   Chapter 4: Things of the Enterprise         46 Products and Product Types 46 Inventory 51 Structure 54 Heterogeneous Entities 61 A Variation 65 References 67   Chapter 5: Procedures and Activities         68 Some Definitions 68 Dividing Activities 69 Work Orders 72 Labor Usage 72 Actual Asset Usage 76 Kinds of Work Orders 80 In Summary 94   Chapters 6: Contracts          95 Purchase Orders and Sales Orders 95 User Specifications 103 Contract Roles 106 Employment Contracts 108 Marketing Regions and Districts 108 Deliveries of Products and Services 111 Summary of Material Movements 112 In Summary 116   Chapter 7: Accounting         117 Basic Bookkeeping 118 Summarization 148 References 156   Chapter 8: The Laboratory         157 Samples, Tests, and Observations 157 Derived Observations 161 Test Types 163 Sample Methods 164 Testing for Material Composition 167 Tests as Activities 169   Chapter 9: Material Requirements Planning        173 Planning Finished Products 173 Determining Component Requirements 175 Firm Planned Orders 178 The Manufacturing Planning Model 179 The Planning Model 183   Chapter 10: Process Manufacturing        187 More about Assets 188 Structure and Fluid Paths 1901 Flows 192 Processes 192 Monitoring Processes 196 Tags and Measuring Points 197 The Laboratory 199 Translation of Tag Values 201   Chapter 11:            Documents        205 The Document 206 Structure 208 Roles 210 Authorship 210 Receipt of Documents 211 Other Roles 213 Subject and Contents 213 Versions 217 Variable Format Forms 218 Clinical Trials Observations 219 Material Safety Data Sheets 225 References 234   Chapter 12: Lower-Level Conventions        235 Things, Thing Types, and Categories 235 Addresses 239 Roles 242 Resources 243 Relationships 246 Variable Length Records 246 Usually One, Sometimes Many 251 Mathematical Expressions in the Data Model 252 The Universal Data Model 254 A Final Example 256   References        258   Bibliography        259   Index         263