Product Model
The Product Model is an Unified Model Language (UML) model in Rational Software Architect (RSA) that contains all the product definitions to allow detailed description of the building blocks of insurance products in a structured fashion.
The Product Model is a model providing:
- All product modelling building blocks with all the information they require. A full product
definition is broken down into many smaller definitions of nine different types.
- Product
- Request specification
- Request behavior specification
- Role specification
- Constant role specification
- Property specification
- Constant specification
- Rule specification
- Calculation specification
- Each type of building block has a precise and standard behavior. The building blocks are linked together following a set of association rules to form a model.
- Relationships between the building blocks.
- Product Specification Diagrams (PSD) for each Line Of Business.
- Product features or project scopes as a loose grouping of building blocks that illustrate a specific product modelling concept by using together with Information Governance Catalog (IGC) Business Vocabulary.
- Mapping to integrate the product models with other models in Rational Software Architect (RSA):
- Mapping the product modelling building blocks that constitute a data requirement to the BOM.
- Mapping the product modelling building blocks that constitute a functional requirement e.g. calculations should get calculated, rules should get tested and requests should get processed, to the Analysis Process Model.
The Product Model is used to specify aspects of the behaviour associated with life-cycle events of insurance policies belonging to the products under analysis. It may be carried out in the context of a new application development or upgrade, or in the case of the introduction of new products, to test whether there are new application requirements.
An essential approach to product modelling is to enforce a clear separation but close relationship between the concepts of products and agreements.
The insurance products represent what the insurance company can sell, while insurance agreements represent what has been sold by the insurance company to specific customers. The products can be thought of as being templates of insurance agreements where many of the details are not yet specified. It is only for a specific agreement that you can add concrete information such as the policyholder name, the start and end dates, the insured amount, or the premium amount.
The Product Model provides value in a number of ways:
- As input to the design of a product definition system
- To assist in building standard processes and functions independent of product
- To create product definitions to be used by processes that manage policies of that product
including the following:
- Product components available for agreements
- Properties and roles that may be used
- Rules for acceptance of data
- Rules for acceptance of agreement composition
- Rules for acceptance of requests
- Definitions for new data
- Product specific data condition events that trigger processes
- Product specific agreement behaviour in servicing requests
- To identify reuse of components (products, rules, calculations, and parameters)