Using an Ontology for Defining Semantics of Fractal Enterprise Model.

The paper discusses experience of using a formal ontology for defining semantics of a modeling language. This is done for an enterprise modeling language called Fractal Enterprise Model (FEM). FEM significantly differs from other enterprise modeling languages; it presents the operational activities of an enterprise using a combination of classes and sets. Although a model in FEM does not explicitly represent such concepts as individuals or time, these concepts should be introduced to formally define FEM’s semantics. Thus, the ontology underlying FEM needs to include more concepts than FEM itself. The paper presents FEM in an informal fashion, and then suggest the first version of an ontology suitable for defining its formal semantics, which consist of the taxonomy of elements, formally defined relationships between them and a set of axioms.