Representing processes in the extended entity-relationship model

Although closely related, functional and structural aspects of information systems are usually modeled independently of each other. The author proposes to combine functional and structural modeling into an integrated design methodology. He chooses for this purpose two popular and widely used models, the data-flow-oriented functional model and the extended entity-relationship (EER) data model. Since functional modeling generally precedes structural modeling in the design of information systems, the author examines how functional specifications can be represented using EER constructs. The methodology is based on using EER existence dependencies for representing the functional constraints implied by the process interactions