Service-Oriented Systems as A Thining Machine: A Case Study of Customer Relationship Management

This paper concerns the intersection of enterprise models and IT services. In particular, it focuses on modeling in IT customer relationship management as a process-oriented control. The paper’s case study relates to an Information Technology Infrastructure Library processes project in a government ministry. The research objective is to model the organization’s customer relationship management system based on a recently proposed conceptual model: an abstract thinging machine. This model is used to depict conceptual (application-independent) machines in customer relationship management systems. The paper’s overarching question is whether thinging machines produce models that are as viable as those produced by methodologies such as Unified Modeling Language and Object-Process Methodology.