Value Chain
The Value Chain pattern creates elements and diagrams that models a value chain including the primary Activities that are required to deliver the product or service to the market and the supporting Activities.

Figure 1. Shows a model of a value chain with primary and supporting Activities.
Discussion
The purpose of the pattern is to allow Business Analysts, Business Architects and other stakeholders to create and view a Value Chain that describes the set of activities that an organization needs to perform to deliver value to its customers. 

The pattern is typically used early in an initiative and is used to articulate the core way that value is delivered and is useful as:
·	A reference or starting point for a more detailed Process model. 
A decision support tool to determine which activities are the most valuable, and which are the most costly and which ones could be improved to provide more competitive advantage.

The following is a list of some things you may want to do when working with this pattern.
·	Change the name of the Package and the diagram to suit the initiative.
Change the name of the Primary and Secondary Activities.
Change the order of the Activities to suit the initiative.
Define other Value Chains at different levels in the organization.
Remove elements or add additional element as needed.

The following is a list of some of the next steps available when applying the pattern.
·	Extend the model by creating additional elements to represent Activities.
Define Trace relationships showing how the Strategic elements relate to up-process elements such as Goals and Drivers and down process elements such as Business Rules, Requirements, User Stories, Use Cases.
Create high quality documentation generated automatically from the model.
Reference
The following help topics will assist you learn about how to work with this pattern.
Value Chain Overview
The Value Chain
Connector Style Options
Element Appearance
Traceability Tools
Documentation

The following are some of the tools that will be helpful when working with this pattern.
Document Generator
The Document Generator is a powerful facility in Enterprise Architect that allows a Database Engineer or other stakeholder to create high quality corporate or technical documentation directly from the model, suitable for internal or external audiences. For more details see the Documentation help topic or the more general topic on Model Publishing.
Element Discussions
The Element Discussion facility is a fully featured collaboration tool allowing modelers and model viewers and reviewers to communicate with each other directly inside the repository. Modelers using the full client or occasional viewers using WebEA can both post and reply to discussions and communicate and engage in chat. For more details see the Element Discussions help topic.
Specification View
The Specification View can be used as a way of working with any element type in a spreadsheet or word process view. It is particularly useful when there are a large number of elements as is typically the case when describing a system of any appreciable size. For more details see the Specification View help topic.
Baseline Tool
The Baseline Tool can capture a snapshot of a selected Package at a point in time and then at a later time the repository can be compared to this (or another baseline) for the purpose of determining what has changed. Any number of baselines can be created and labeled and there is a baseline comparison tool which displays the differences between the baseline and the model and allows the modeler to revert a change in the model to a baseline at a granular level. For more details see the Baseline Tool help topic.
Relationship Matrix
The Relationship Matrix provides a spreadsheet like view of two groups of elements and the relationships that exist between them. It can be a used as a powerful analysis mechanism to visually indicate how elements are related to each other and to discover which elements are missing relationships. For more details see the Relationship Matrix  help topic.
Traceability Window
The Traceability Window automatically displays the relationships that exist between Use Cases and other model elements including up-process and down-process elements. The traceability tree view can be conveniently expanded to see deeper relationships and elements displayed in the window can be located in all diagrams in which they appear. For more details see the Traceability Window  help topic.
Alternate Images for Diagram Elements
Most standard elements allow an alternate image to be defined for an element that will be used in place of the graphical notation for the element either on a selected diagram or as a default on all diagrams. For more details see the Using the Image Manager help topic.
Diagram Layout
The Diagram Layout tool allows you to layout an entire diagram, selected elements or sections of a diagram to make it more visually appealing or meaningful to a particular audience. There are a wide range of layout types to choose from and some types have filters that can be applied. For more details see the Diagram Layout help topic.
Pan and Zoom
The Pan and Zoom facility is one of the tools that can be used to navigate around a large diagram. Often the resolution of a diagram must be reduced to ensure it is wholly visible but by using the Pan and Zoom window you can leave the diagram at a readable resolution and pan around to areas of interest zooming in when necessary. For more details see the Pan and Zoom help topic.

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