Towards a conceptual model for the office: An integrating approach.

Abstract

A persistent problem among researchers in office automation has been the absence of a comprehensive theory of office information systems. Commercial software such as spreadsheet and financial packages provide only limited support for tasks such as developing balance sheets and income statements. It also supports only limited software integration, usually at the interface and data levels. A model of an office is proposed as a basis for developing integrated office systems. Prior approaches to this problem have been mostly limited to only one or two aspects of the office with the exclusion of others. These approaches have been characterized as forms, data, information, procedural, functional, communication, and decision oriented. The integrated model synthesizes these different views of the office. The proposed model consists of macroscopic and microscopic components. The macroscopic structure is modelled with a semantic network which describes how "functions" of the office are related to one another. The lower level component of the model consists of "procedures" which support the functions described by the functional structure. These procedures use utilities and tools at a lower level of accomplishing standard operations. Thus support for functions is provided through procedures which rely on utilities at a lower level. The model is operationalized with a knowledge base/database containing the necessary knowledge/data for accomplishing the functions and procedures. Detailed designs of the components of the architecture are presented. A prototype based on the design has been implemented in Prolog. The contribution of the dissertation has five dimensions: these are the literature review, the office study, the conceptual model, and a prototype office system. The literature review provides a clarification of concepts and identification of research problems. The office study contributes to a better understanding of analyzing offices from the point of view of modelling. The conceptual model is a good starting point for designing and developing integrated office systems. The prototype system demonstrates the feasibility of the model for developing an integrated office system.