On the use of an Interoperability Framework in Coopetition Context

The simultaneous cooperation and competition between companies referred to as coopetition in the strategy literature is becoming a recurring theme in the business settings. Companies cooperate with their competitors to gain access to supplementary and complementary resources and capabilities in order to create more value for the customers in order to achieve sustainable value creation and distribution. To coopete, the companies need to be interoperable. Growing globalization, competitiveness and rising environmental awareness are driving many companies to prepare and control their interoperability strategy in order to enhance their ability to interoperate. In this paper, we use an interoperability model called the Maturity Model for Enterprise Interoperability (MMEI) to the coopetition context and we present some initial thoughts on the use of this maturity model in the coopetition context

Towards a taxonomy of process quality characteristics for assessment

Previous assessment of process quality have focused on process capability (i.e. the ability of a process to meet its stated goals). This paper proposes a taxonomy of alternative process quality characteristics based on intrinsic and extrinsic quality attributes. The ultimate goal of this taxonomy is to provide a framework to conduct process assessments using different process quality aspects. Such a framework would considerably broaden process quality perspectives beyond the primary measure of process capability. It would also allow practitioners to identify and evaluate relevant quality characteristics for processes based on specific contexts and implications. For the process assessment model developers, it offers a list of process quality characteristics that could be used to develop relevant process measurement frameworks

Structural elements of coordination mechanisms in collaborative planning processes and their assessment through maturity models: Application to a ceramic tile company

Maturity is defined as a measure to evaluate the capabilities of an organization in regards to a certain discipline. The Collaborative Planning Process is a very complex process and Coordination mechanisms are especially relevant in this field to align the plans of the supply chain members. The objective of this paper is to develop a maturity model and a methodology to perform assessment for the Structural Elements of Coordination Mechanisms in the Collaborative Planning Process. Structural elements are specified in order to characterize coordination mechanisms in a collaborative planning context and they have been defined as key areas to be assessed by the maturity model. The identified structural elements are: number of decision-makers, collaboration level, interdependence relationships nature, interdepen-dence relationships type, number of coordination mechanisms, information exchanged, information processing, decision sequence characteristics and stopping criteria. Structural elements are assessed using the scheme of five levels: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimized. This proposal has been applied to a ceramic tile company and the results are also reported.Cuenca, L.; Boza Garcia, A.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Trienekens, JJ. (2013). Structural elements of coordination mechanisms in collaborative planning processes and their assessment through maturity models: Application to a ceramic tile company. Computers in Industry. 64(8):898-911. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2013.06.019S89891164

Towards a Meta-Model for Networked Enterprise

Contains fulltext : 161434.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access

Interoperability Frameworks for Health Systems: Survey and Comparison

International audienceSeveral research work and initiatives have been proposed in the literature to identify the dimensions of interoperability and to define a framework that provides organizing mechanism and knowledge of this field in a structured way. However, the lack of a common understanding and a consensus on these dimensions is one of the biggest barriers to true interoperability. In this paper, we aim to identify the required dimensions that have to be taken into account to facilitate interoperability between health systems by (i) a survey of the main research works and initiatives dealing with interoperability in the health domain and (ii) the investigation of a comparative analysis of the interoperability reference frameworks based on specified criteria

A Flexible Approach Based on the user Preferences for Schema Matching

International audienceAutomating schema matching is challenging. Previous approaches focus on computing all element matches between two schemas and don't take into account the preferences of the user who can be only interested in specific elements of the schema. We propose a new approach based on the user preferences to extract subsets of schemas on which will be applied the matching process. Fuzzy sets can be used to express the user preferences in the selection criteria of a query. Thus, we introduce the notion of fuzzy set defined over a part of the schema, then its extended form that is explicitly defined over the whole schema, according to the generalization rules. This will reduce the research space and therefore contribute to optimize the schema matching process. We also propose to propagate weights to elements of a target schema according to the user preferences on a source schema and mappings found by the matcher between the two schemas. The output scores give an automatic order of the target schema elements based on the interest expressed by the user

A financial reporting ontology for market, exchange, and enterprise shared information systems

Enterprises operate in markets by building and fulfilling exchange relationships. However, up to date accounting information systems are organized in an enterprise-specific way. We introduce the Market Information perspective on top of the Exchange (Shared Ledger) and Enterprise-Specific perspectives. The latter, developed earlier, are enhanced and the interplay with the Market perspective elaborated. First, we analyze how are Market related concepts of Offering, Contract, Resource, and Social Interaction represented in UFO ontologies and other ontologies. Second, we propose a Market perspective, and included Exchange, and Enterprise perspective conceptual model of a Shared Information System for Financial Reporting in OntoUML language, and third, we analyze the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Conceptual Framework and Standards for Financial Reporting to uncover construct deficit and overload in these Standards and Framework for usage in Shared Information Systems

Pathways to CP(P)S modelling & architecting

International audienceEnterprise Interoperability is getting more important in a world where enterprises are digitalizing everything. Interoperability is an extension to integration by aiming at loose coupling of systems and see integration as a continuous process. In manufacturing the trend in digitalization is aiming at Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS). In this short paper, we are looking for pathways representing different stages to Interoperable Cyber-Physical (Production) Systems

Interoperability-related architectural problems and solutions in information systems. A scoping study

<i>[Context]</i> With the increasing industrial demands for seamless exchange of data and services among information systems, architectural solutions are a promising research direction which supports high levels of interoperability at early development stages. <i> [Objectives] </i>This research aims at identifying the architectural problems and before-release solutions of interoperability on its different levels in information systems, and exploring the interoperability metrics and research methods used to evaluate identified solutions. <i> [Methods]</i> We performed a scoping study in five digital libraries and descriptively analyzed the results of the selected studies. <i>[Results]</i> From the 22 studies included, we extracted a number of architectural interoperability problems on the technical, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic levels. Many problems are caused by systems' heterogeneity on data representation, meaning or context. The identified solutions include standards, ontologies, wrappers, or mediators. Evaluation methods to validate solutions mostly included toy examples rather than empirical studies. <i>[Conclusions]</i> Progress has been made in the software architecture research area to solve interoperability problems. Nevertheless, more researches need to be spent on solutions for the higher levels of interoperability accompanied with proper empirical evaluation for their effectiveness and usefulness