Sustainability of systems interoperability in dynamic business networks

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresCollaborative networked environments emerged with the spread of the internet, contributing to overcome past communication barriers, and identifying interoperability as an essential property to support businesses development. When achieved seamlessly, efficiency is increased in the entire product life cycle support. However, due to the different sources of knowledge, models and semantics, enterprise organisations are experiencing difficulties exchanging critical information, even when they operate in the same business environments. To solve this issue, most of them try to attain interoperability by establishing peer-to-peer mappings with different business partners, or use neutral data and product standards as the core for information sharing, in optimized networks. In current industrial practice, the model mappings that regulate enterprise communications are only defined once, and most of them are hardcoded in the information systems. This solution has been effective and sufficient for static environments, where enterprise and product models are valid for decades. However, more and more enterprise systems are becoming dynamic, adapting and looking forward to meet further requirements; a trend that is causing new interoperability disturbances and efficiency reduction on existing partnerships. Enterprise Interoperability (EI) is a well established area of applied research, studying these problems, and proposing novel approaches and solutions. This PhD work contributes to that research considering enterprises as complex and adaptive systems, swayed to factors that are making interoperability difficult to sustain over time. The analysis of complexity as a neighbouring scientific domain, in which features of interoperability can be identified and evaluated as a benchmark for developing a new foundation of EI, is here proposed. This approach envisages at drawing concepts from complexity science to analyse dynamic enterprise networks and proposes a framework for sustaining systems interoperability, enabling different organisations to evolve at their own pace, answering the upcoming requirements but minimizing the negative impact these changes can have on their business environment

Maturity Model for Interoperability Potential Measurement

Interoperability potential concerns the preparation level of an enterprise to establish an efficient collaboration with possible part- ners. In order to improve their interoperability, enterprises need to know witch level of maturity they have achieved. This article pro- poses a complete maturity model composed by a methodology and a reference set of parameters to measure interoperability potential. In order to clarify the proposal, an example of application in a real case is described.Campos, C.; Chalmeta, R.; Grangel, R.; Poler Escoto, R. (2013). Maturity Model for Interoperability Potential Measurement. Information Systems Management. 30(3):218-234. doi:10.1080/10580530.2013.794630S218234303Alfaro, J. J., Rodriguez-Rodriguez, R., Verdecho, M. J., & Ortiz, A. (2009). Business process interoperability and collaborative performance measurement. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 22(9), 877-889. doi:10.1080/09511920902866112Sabucedo, L. Á., & Rifón, L. A. (2010). Managing Citizen Profiles in the Domain of e-Government: The cPortfolio Project. Information Systems Management, 27(4), 309-319. doi:10.1080/10580530.2010.514181Berre, A.-J., Elvesæter, B., Figay, N., Guglielmina, C., Johnsen, S. G., Karlsen, D., … Lippe, S. (s. f.). The ATHENA Interoperability Framework. Enterprise Interoperability II, 569-580. doi:10.1007/978-1-84628-858-6_62Blanc, S., Ducq, Y., & Vallespir, B. (2007). Evolution management towards interoperable supply chains using performance measurement. Computers in Industry, 58(7), 720-732. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2007.05.011Campos, C., Martí, I., Grangel, R., Mascherpa, A. and Chalmeta, R. A methodological proposal for the development of an interoperability framework.Model Driven Interoperability for Sustainable Information Systems (MDISIS′08) (CAiSE′08). Vol. 340, pp.47–57. CEUR-WS. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-340/paper04.pdfChalmeta, R., & Grangel, R. (2005). Performance measurement systems for virtual enterprise integration. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 18(1), 73-84. doi:10.1080/0951192042000213164Doumeingts, G. and Chen, D. Basic concepts and approaches to develop interoperability of enterprise applications.PRO-VE,IFIP Conference Proceedings. Edited by: Camarinha-Matos, L. M. and Afsarmanesh, H. Vol. 262, pp.323–330. Norwell, MA: Kluwer.Duque, A., Campos, C., Jimenez-Ruiz, E. and Chalmeta, R. An ontological solution to supprot interoperability in the textile industry.Second IFIP WG 5.8 International Workshop, IWEI 2009. Edited by: Poler, M. V. S. R. Vol. 38, pp.38–51. New York: Springer.Guédria, W., Naudet, Y., & Chen, D. (2008). Interoperability Maturity Models – Survey and Comparison –. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 273-282. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-88875-8_48Hoving, R. (2007). Information Technology Leadership Challenges — Past, Present, and Future. Information Systems Management, 24(2), 147-153. doi:10.1080/10580530701221049Palomares, N., Campos, C., & Palomero, S. (2010). How to Develop a Questionnaire in Order to Measure Interoperability Levels in Enterprises. Enterprise Interoperability IV, 387-396. doi:10.1007/978-1-84996-257-5_36Walsham, G. (1995). Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method. European Journal of Information Systems, 4(2), 74-81. doi:10.1057/ejis.1995.

An EAI based integration solution for science and research outcomes information management

Open Access articleIn this paper we present an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) based proposal for research outcomes information management. The proposal is contextualized in terms of national and international science and research outcomes information management, corresponding supporting information systems and ecosystems. Information systems interoperability problems, approaches, technologies and tools are presented and applied to the research outcomes information management case. A business and technological perspective is provided, including the conceptual analysis and modelling, an integration solution based in a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) and the orchestration engine to execute the proposed solution. For illustrative purposes, the role and information system needs of a research unit is assumed as the representative case

Specifications and Development of Interoperability Solution dedicated to Multiple Expertise Collaboration in a Design Framework

This paper describes the specifications of an interoperability platform based on the PPO (Product Process Organization) model developed by the French community IPPOP in the context of collaborative and innovative design. By using PPO model as a reference, this work aims to connect together heterogonous tools used by experts easing data and information exchanges. After underlining the growing needs of collaborative design process, this paper focuses on interoperability concept by describing current solutions and their limits. Then a solution based on the flexibility of the PPO model adapted to the philosophy of interoperability is proposed. To illustrate these concepts, several examples are more particularly described (robustness analysis, CAD and Product Lifecycle Management systems connections)

Service-Oriented Architecture for Space Exploration Robotic Rover Systems

Currently, industrial sectors are transforming their business processes into e-services and component-based architectures to build flexible, robust, and scalable systems, and reduce integration-related maintenance and development costs. Robotics is yet another promising and fast-growing industry that deals with the creation of machines that operate in an autonomous fashion and serve for various applications including space exploration, weaponry, laboratory research, and manufacturing. It is in space exploration that the most common type of robots is the planetary rover which moves across the surface of a planet and conducts a thorough geological study of the celestial surface. This type of rover system is still ad-hoc in that it incorporates its software into its core hardware making the whole system cohesive, tightly-coupled, more susceptible to shortcomings, less flexible, hard to be scaled and maintained, and impossible to be adapted to other purposes. This paper proposes a service-oriented architecture for space exploration robotic rover systems made out of loosely-coupled and distributed web services. The proposed architecture consists of three elementary tiers: the client tier that corresponds to the actual rover; the server tier that corresponds to the web services; and the middleware tier that corresponds to an Enterprise Service Bus which promotes interoperability between the interconnected entities. The niche of this architecture is that rover's software components are decoupled and isolated from the rover's body and possibly deployed at a distant location. A service-oriented architecture promotes integrate-ability, scalability, reusability, maintainability, and interoperability for client-to-server communication.Comment: LACSC - Lebanese Association for Computational Sciences, http://www.lacsc.org/; International Journal of Science & Emerging Technologies (IJSET), Vol. 3, No. 2, February 201