Products and RIsks

The ARIS method provides capabilities for operational risk management. There is risk exposure when you do something. That I suppose is the main reason Risks are normally connected to functions or other objects representing or having behaviour.

I understand your need. I would recommend you create your own "product" object type based on technical term and if needed - "product tree" based on Technical Term diagram etc. You can model the "affects" type connection in Business Controls Diagram and Matrix Model (Check 15.2 in Method Manual if that connection is allowed in other models as well). The good thing is that the allowed connection types betweeen Technical Term and other objects include most if not all connection types of Product/Service and many more, some of them very useful.

Thanks Ivo, that sounds like a good idea, if it weren't for the fact that the product object has been apart of our filter for a while now and there is are too many artefacts in our repository to consider rework. I will still see if there is some way we could implement the technique using your method.

Then "Replace object types" report or similar technique might be an option.

Unfortunately replacing the object type would not be appropriate in our situation because it would break the meta-model. Technical terms do not have the same relationships as products. E.g a technical term cannot be related to a distribution channel.

Also, from experience I have found that the more you mess with the standard meta-model, the more of a mess you get yourself into!

But thanks for your ideas! I think we will have to create an inferred relationship via a relevant function.