Functional software architecture: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:30, 13 May 2007

Revision as of 17:56, 15 May 2007

Line 67:

In this way EFD has many similarities with IDEF0 diagrams, which also represent in a hierarchical way business processes as a combination of functions and triggers. Difference is that an EFD places the business functions in an organization hierarchical perspective, which outlines the downstream of certain processes in the organization. On the contrary, IDEF0 diagrams show responsibilities of certain business functions through the use of arrows. Also, IDEF0 has a clear representation of inputs and outputs of every (sub)function.

EFD possibly could be used as a business front-end to a software modeling language like UML. The major resemblance with IDEF as a modeling tool indicates that it can be done. However, more research is needed to improve the EFD technique in such a way that formal mappings to UML can be made. Work of Kim et. al. [1] about the complementary use of IDEF and UML has contributed to the acceptance of IDEF as business-front end. A similar study should be done with EFD and UML.

==References==