A discrete event system model of business system-a systems theoretic foundation for information systems analysis. I

A variety of information systems methodologies for information systems analysis have been proposed. Though each methodology has its own effective concepts and tools, there still does not seem to exist a rigorous model of a business system. In this paper a general model of business systems is proposed. The model describes the whole mechanism of typical routine processing of business tasks with slips and business papers. Furthermore it can be used to examine the ability and limitation of popular tools. The model proposed is called a business transaction system. It consists of both static and dynamic structures. The former depicts the interconnection of the transactions and file system in a business system. The dynamic structure is constructed as a state space representation by introducing a state space, and then the resultant dynamic system is a discrete event system. The state space consists of the file system and schedule of transactions processing. The model provides answers to some questions about the nature of information systems methodologies.