Embedding agents in business applications using enterprise integration patterns

This paper addresses the issue of integrating agents with a variety of external resources and services, as found in enterprise computing environments. We propose an approach for interfacing agents and existing message routing and mediation engines based on the endpoint concept from the enterprise integration patterns of Hohpe and Woolf. A design for agent endpoints is presented, and an architecture for connecting the Jason agent platform to the Apache Camel enterprise integration framework using this type of endpoint is described. The approach is illustrated by means of a business process use case, and a number of Camel routes are presented. These demonstrate the benefits of interfacing agents to external services via a specialised message routing tool that supports enterprise integration patterns

The role of Enterprise portals in Enterprise Integration

Today’s enterprises are moving business systems to the Internet - to connect people, business processes, and people to business processes in enterprise and across enterprise boundaries. The portal brings it all together: business processes, departmental sites, knowledge management resources, enterprise management systems, CRM systems, analytics, email, calendars, external content, transactions, administration, workflow, and more. The goal of this paper is to present the role of the Enterprise Portal in internal and external enterprise integration.Portal, Enterprise Portal, Integration, ETL, EAI, EII

The Challenges of Enterprise Integration: Cycles of Integration and Disintegration Over Time

In recent years enterprise integration has become an important theme in information systems research and practice. Enterprise integration pervades enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and customer resource management (CRM) systems and applications. However, much IS research in this area seems to assume that enterprise integration is inevitable and that enterprise integration is strategically necessary. These assumptions appear to have held sway until now, probably because most IS researchers have studied the life cycle of just one single enterprise systems project. Our research throws into question these assumptions. Using critical ethnography, we studied a small-to- medium sized company within the context of a large conglomerate over a seven-year period in total, from mid 1996 to early 2004. This company was one of many subsidiaries within a large conglomerate in the Asia- Pacific region (one of the global 500 companies with annual revenues of more than US$4 billion). Looking at the broader context (the conglomerate as a whole), and seen over a sufficiently long time scale, our findings suggest that enterprise integration is not inevitable, nor is it always strategically necessary. Rather, enterprise integration is perhaps best described as a cycle: as one or more cycles of integration, disintegration, and (perhaps) reintegration. This paper can be seen as one response to the call for more empirical in-depth case studies concerning enterprise systems

Information Technology for Enterprise Integration

The ability to streainliiie cross-functionalbusiness processes and make mailagerial decisions integratiug inultiple perspectivcs of iui ciiterprise has become iiicreasingly the core competency at which many companies are aiming. This panel will survey the iiifonnation technology for coordinating the complex array of decision and business processes in today\u27s enterprises. Inform;itioii Technology has played an important role in the effort to make organizations more productive. With the capability of computcr software, hardware, and network communication growing rapidly, the technological hottleiieck has gradually shifted from end-user computing to enterprise integration and inter-organizational coordination

Concept integration precedes enterprise integration

The integration of enterprises in a vertical market is not solved but rather facilitated by information technology. One aspect is the coupling of heterogeneous information systems from the participating enterprises. However, before this integration can be tackled, the enterprises have to create a common set of concepts to discuss their cooperation. We call this the inter-organizational concept base and present a proposal on how to structure such a concept base and how to co-develop it by participants from various enterprises. Product ontologies are bundled into reference models for certain industry sectors and serve as a starting point for the discussion about concepts. The second ingredient are explicit representations of norms that describe who is supposed to participate in which part of the discussion process. The end result, the inter-organizational concept base, is the input for an inter-organizational workflow modeling to specify precisely the enterprise integration. 1 Introduct..

Linking design and manufacturing domains via web-based and enterprise integration technologies

The manufacturing industry faces many challenges such as reducing time-to-market and cutting costs. In order to meet these increasing demands, effective methods are need to support the early product development stages by bridging the gap of communicating early design ideas and the evaluation of manufacturing performance. This paper introduces methods of linking design and manufacturing domains using disparate technologies. The combined technologies include knowledge management supporting for product lifecycle management (PLM) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, aggregate process planning systems, workflow management and data exchange formats. A case study has been used to demonstrate the use of these technologies, illustrated by adding manufacturing knowledge to generate alternative early process plan which are in turn used by an ERP system to obtain and optimise a rough-cut capacity plan