Pragmatic interoperability in the enterprise : a research agenda

Eective collaboration among today's enterprises is indispensable. Such collaborative synergy is important to foster the creation of innovative value-added products and services that would have otherwise been dicult to achieve if enterprises work in isolation. However, it is a widely held belief that interoperability problems have been one of the perennial hurdles in achieving such collaboration. This research aims to improve the current state of the art in enterprise interoperability research by zeroing in on the notion of pragmatic interoperability(PI). When enterprise systems collaborate by exchanging information, PI goes beyond the compatibility between the structure and the meaning of shared information, it further ensures that the intended eect of the message exchange is realized. This paper outlines our research agenda to address the analysis, design, development and evaluation of a pragmatically interoperable solution for enterprise collaboration

Combining goal-oriented and model-driven approaches to solve the Payment Problem Scenario

Motivated by the objective to provide an improved participation of business domain experts in the design of service-oriented integration solutions, we extend our previous work on using the COSMO methodology for service mediation by introducing a goal-oriented approach to requirements engineering. With this approach, business requirements including the motivations behind the mediation solution are better understood, specified, and aligned with their technical implementations. We use the Payment Problem Scenario of the SWS Challenge to illustrate the extension

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.

Service identification requirements for enterprise information systems

Identifying services is one of the most important step in developing service-oriented business systems. Existing service identification methods still have some shortcomings, e.g. unrepeatable approach, inapplicable to all enterprise information systems and unadaptable to business factor change. Some approaches focus on fixed cases or certain types of organizations neglecting the change of involvement and operation of the enterprise systems, which have limited value to apply to a broad range of real-life business cases In this paper, we investigate requirements of service identification from different types of information systems, from single systems to collaborative systems, from closed systems to open systems. The research is important for providing a solid foundation for further identifying services for developing different service-oriented system

A conceptual model for semantically-based e-government portals

Issues of semantic interoperability and service integration for e-government portals are the domain of interest of the present paper. We propose a Conceptual Model for One-Stop e-Government Portals based on the Semantic Web Service technology. We describe our research into building the three basic ontologies and their integration with standard ontologies. The result is a project-independent reusable model. At the same time, we outline a simple methodology for applying the proposed conceptual model into a specific scenario

Framework for a business interoperability quotient measurement model

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova da Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial (MEGI)Over the last decade the context of Interoperability has been changing rapidly. It has been expanding from the largely technically focused area of Information Systems towards Business Processes and Business Semantics. However, there exists a need for more comprehensive ways to define business interoperability and enable its performance measurement as a first step towards improvement of interoperability conditions between collaborating entities. Through extensive literature reviews and analysis of European Research initiatives in this area, this dissertation presents the State of the Art in Business Interoperability. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a model that closely captures the factors that are responsible for Business Interoperability in the context of Collaborative Business Processes. This Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model (BIQMM), developed in this dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to capture the key elements responsible for collaboration performance. Through the quantification of the relevance of each element to the particular collaboration scenario in question, this model enables a quantitative analysis of Business Interoperability, so that an overall interoperability score can be arrived at for enhanced performance measurements.Finally, the BIQMM is applied to a business case involving Innovayt and LM Glassfiber to demonstrate its applicability to different collaboration scenarios

Methodology for enterprise interoperability assessment

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresWith the evolution of modern enterprises and the increasing market competitiveness, the creation of ecosystems with large amounts of data and knowledge generally needing to be exchanged electronically, is arising. However, this enterprise inter and intra-connectivity is suffering from interoperability issues. Not visible when it is effective, the lack of interoperability poses a series of challenging problems to the industrial community, which can reduce the envisaged efficiency and increase costs. Those problems are mostly caused by misinterpretations of data at the systems level, but problems at the organizational and human levels may pose equivalent difficulties. Existing research and technology provides several frameworks to assist the development of collaborative environments and enterprise networks with well-defined methods to facilitate interoperability. Nonetheless, the interoperability process is not guaranteed and is not easily sustainable, changing upon frequent market and requirement variations. For these reasons, there is a need for a testing methodology to assess the capability of enterprises to cooperate at a certain point in time. This dissertation proposes a methodology to assess that capability, with a corresponding framework to evaluate the interoperability process, applying eliminatory tests to assess the structure of the organizations, the conceptual models and their implementation. This work contributes to increase the chances enterprises have of interoperating effectively, and enables the adoption of extraordinary measures to improve their current interoperability situation

Reference ontologies to support the development of global production network systems

In competitive and time sensitive market places, organisations are tasked with providing product lifecycle management (PLM) approaches to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, react to change and understand the balance of possible options when making decisions on complex multi-faceted problems, global production networks (GPN) is one such domain in which this applies. When designing and configuring GPN to develop, manufacture and deliver product–service provision, information requirements that affect decision making become more complex. The application of reference ontologies to a domain and its related information requirements can enhance and accelerate the development of new product-service systems with a view towards the seamless interchange of information or interoperability between systems and domains. This paper presents (i) preliminary results for the capture and modelling of end-user information, (ii) an initial higher level reference core ontology for the development of reference ontologies and (iii) the formal logical modelling of Level 1 of the FLEXINET reference ontology using a Common Logic based approach

Role of Semantic web in the changing context of Enterprise Collaboration

In order to compete with the global giants, enterprises are concentrating on their core competencies and collaborating with organizations that compliment their skills and core activities. The current trend is to develop temporary alliances of independent enterprises, in which companies can come together to share skills, core competencies and resources. However, knowledge sharing and communication among multidiscipline companies is a complex and challenging problem. In a collaborative environment, the meaning of knowledge is drastically affected by the context in which it is viewed and interpreted; thus necessitating the treatment of structure as well as semantics of the data stored in enterprise repositories. Keeping the present market and technological scenario in mind, this research aims to propose tools and techniques that can enable companies to assimilate distributed information resources and achieve their business goals