1. The Evolution toward REA Accountability Infrastructures for Enterprise Systems William E. McCarthy, Michigan State University Present Landscape of Enterprise Systems Hypothesized Correspondence The REA ontology Symbolic Mapping for ERPs ? Future Work Worthwhile ?

2. Source: David, McCarthy & Sommer, Communications of the ACM, May 2003, pp. 65-9. Could be derived from REA infrastructure ??

3. F u n ct io n al I n te g r at io n An Enterprise symbol set File-based General ledger systems ERP systems Collabora- tion systems REA symbol set ???

4. Economic Event Economic Agent Economic Resource duality

5. REA Ontology & Extensions Accountability Infrastructure Types & Grouping Commitments & Contracts Business Events & Workflow State Changes in Business Processes Standards: –UN/CEFACT UMM, CCBP, & UBAC –ECIMF ISO Open-edi –OAG, Ontolog, others

6. Economic Event Economic Agent resourceflow duality from to Basic Economic Primitives of the REA Ontology Economic Resource

7. Economic Event Economic Agent Resource Type Event Type Agent Type REA Typing and Grouping Extensions

8. deliverypayment commitment to deliver Economic Contract commitment to pay duality reciprocal fulfills REA Contract as a Bundle of Event Commitments

9. Economic Commitment specifies Abstract Specification of Commitments with Type Images Resource Type Event Type Agent Type

10. ISO Open-edi Ontology Collaboration Model Bilateral Collaboration governs Economic Event Economic Resource Economic Agent stockflow from to Economic Contract Economic Commitment reciprocal fulfills establish duality Economic Resource Type typifies specifies Economic Event Type Business Role specifies typifies qualifies reserves involves Partner Third Party Mediated Collaboration Business Transaction participates requires Agreement Regulator constrains

11. delivered raw materials delivered manufactured goods $$ manufactured goods cash recsale Cash receipt Cash paymnt logistical operation shipment labor payment labor acquire labor facilities, services & technology payment service acquire manufacture job material issue manufacture operation $$ service contract service operation product services labor raw materials purchase payment $$

12. Payroll Process Cash Acquisition Process Cash Labor Maintenance Process Cash Labor Car Revenue Process Cash Used Car Used Car Maintained Car Used Car Maintained Car Used Car Give Take Exchange Customer Car Used Car Car Maintained Car Labor Used CarCash Accept Customer Contact Assess Customer Needs Check Car File & Choose Assess Insurance Options & Credit Fill in Contract Customer Pays Find Car & Provide Keys Return Car Update Files Check Out Car Revenue Labor Rental Contract Rental Agent Customer Cash Receipt Cash Cashier

13. Mapping ERP  REA REA represents: –Ideal events without implementation compromises: Procedural-declarative tradeoffs Temporal aggregation –Insufficient detail at attribute level –Insufficient detail at workflow level ERP represents: –Insufficiently documented symbol sets –Overlapping functionality derived from legacy –Overwhelming complexity

14. completely specified value chain & supply chain symbol set SAP Symbol- Set APS & CRM Symbol - Set Oracle Symbol- Set PeopleSoft Symbol- Set SAP System APS & CRM System Oracle System People Soft System SOURCE: Adapted from David,Dunn, and McCarthy. 1999.

15. Possible Directions Dan O’Leary has done SAP overview Cheryl Dunn is working on J.D. Edwards Bill McCarthy is working on detailed SAP through Scheer documentation Others with ERP symbol sets ???? Big ERP—REA questions: –What % of the universal ERP symbol set is accounted for with fully-specified REA ontology ? –If there is a gap, has it been systematically analyzed & modeled ?