Verification, Validation, Qualification, Certification and Enterprise Modelling: requirements, statements and opportunities
Résumé
A model is a representation of reality that enables a user to formalize system behavior, organization, risks, and so on, to evaluate some of system characteristics, and finally to share and to argue opinions about it with other users. A model is then used to support a design phase or a decision-making process to determine what actions (design, improvement or control) have to be carried out on the concerned system. Enterprise Modeling (EM) is defined as the art of externalizing enterprise knowledge which adds value to the enterprise or needs to be shared. It consists of making enterprise models of the structure, behavior and organization of the enterprise. Several approaches, methods, reference models, architecture models, norms and tools have been defined over the last twenty years. Focusing on the idea of model driven engineering, any obtained model must be then validated and checked for rigor and robustness. This is required for guarantee the user a given level of confidence about the suitability, correctness, relevance and fidelity of each model before using it. For this, it is necessary to deploy verification and validation (V&V) concepts and mechanisms related to modeling languages, frameworks or tools. So there exists a high level of dependency between modeling activities and Verification, Validation, Qualification and Certification activities during the entire life cycle of a project in an enterprise whatever may be the objectives of this project. System engineering or software engineering domains have developed and applied several techniques, mechanisms and tools (from the most formal to the most informal ones) for the verification and the validation of models but also for the certification and the qualification (VVQC) of the produced systems resulting from any project. However, there exists a real gap between enterprise modeling (which includes more or less enterprise system information specification and design) and VVQC approaches. This key note will focus on several questions and advices about: • The real challenges and requirements which must be taken into account till the next decade. The goal is here to focus on interoperability, agility, reactivity, and risk management problems. • The interests and the relevance of VVQC for a modeler when facing enterprise modeling and more largely complex systems engineering projects. The goal is to show the link of any act of enterprise modeling to an act of VVQC throughout the various project steps, and to characterize techniques, approaches and impact of VVQC on the enterprise model ‘quality'. • The state of the art regarding some uses, best practices, works in progress in this domain, • The proposition of some priority research orientations for the coming years concerning both conceptual and methodological aspects. Keywords: Enterprise modeling, Verification, Validation, Certification, Qualification