Enterprise Interoperability Iv

Enterprise Interoperability is the ability of an enterprise or organisation to work with other enterprises or organisations without special effort. It is now recognised that interoperability of systems and thus sharing of information is not sufficient to ensure common understanding between enterprises. Knowledge of information meaning and understanding of how is to be used must also be shared if decision makers distributed between those enterprises in the network want to act consistently and efficiently. Industry’s need for Enterprise Interoperability has been one of the significant drivers for research into the Internet of the Future. EI research will embrace and extend contributions from the Internet of Things and the Internet of Services, and will go on to drive the future needs for Internets of People, Processes, and Knowledge.

Within a scenario of globalised markets, where the capacity to efficiently cooperate with other firms starts to become essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, it can be seen how the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become interoperable. This goal of interoperability is essential, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the new business structures that are now emerging, such as supply chains, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Composed of over 40 papers, Enterprise Interoperability V ranges from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. The international nature of the authorship contnues to broaden. Many of the papers have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA'12 Conference from which this book is drawn was organized by Polytechnic University of Valencia, on behalf INTERVAL, and the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability V will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International IFIP Working Conference on Enterprise Interoperability (IWEI 2013), held in Enschede, The Netherlands, during March 27–28, 2013. The theme for IWEI 2013 was “Information Services and Processes for the Interoperable Economy and Society.” The 15 full papers presented in this volume were carefully selected from 35 submissions. The selection was based on a thorough review process, in which each paper was reviewed by at least three experts in the field. The papers are representative of the current research activities in the area of enterprise interoperability and are grouped into six sections: enterprise service interoperability, enterprise interoperability in sectors, interoperability methodology, interoperability for specific application types, strategic and tactical aspects of enterprise interoperability, and ontology-based interoperability. Two keynotes and an invited paper complete this volume.

In a fast changing world governed by innovative Enterprise Services and the Future Internet, the issue of Enterprise Interoperability is no longer limited to the interoperation of systems within a single company, but has become a much greater multi-view issue of interoperability throughout a Network of Enterprises. This book contains the proceedings of 13 workshops presented as short papers and discussions held at each workshop. The workshops were co-located with the I-ESA’12 Conference organized by the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. Complementary to the conference program, the workshops aimed at exploiting new issues, challenges and solutions for Enterprise Interoperability. The scope of the workshops spanned a wide range of interoperability issues in Service Science and Innovation, Model Driven Interoperability, Service Oriented Architectures, Factories of the Future, Enterprise Networks and Management, SME Aspects and Standards.

In 2007 INTEROP-VLab defined Enterprise Interoperability as “the ability of an enterprise system or application to interact with others at a low cost with a flexible approach”. Enterprise Interoperability VI brings together a peer reviewed selection of over 40 papers, ranging from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. It shows how, in a scenario of globalised markets, the capacity to cooperate with other firms efficiently becomes essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, and that the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become interoperable. This goal of interoperability is vital, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the new business structures that are now emerging, such as supply chains, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Establishing efficient and relevant collaborative situations requires managing interoperability from a dynamic perspective: a relevant and efficient collaboration of organizations might require adaptation to remain in line with potentially changing objectives, evolving resources, and unexpected events, for example. Many of the papers contained in this, the seventh volume of Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA’14 Conference is jointly organised by Ecole des Mines Albi-Carmaux, on behalf of PGSO, and the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and supported by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability VI will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment.

Enterprises and organizations of any kind embedded in today's economic environment are deeply dependent on their ability to take part in collaborations. Consequently, it is strongly required for them to get actively involved for their own benefit in emerging, potentially opportunistic collaborative enterprise networks. The concept of “interoperability” has been defined by INTEROP-VLab as “The ability of an enterprise system or application to interact with others at a low cost in a flexible approach”. Consequently, interoperability of organizations appears as a major issue to succeed in building on the fly emerging enterprise networks. The International Conference on Interoperability for Enterprise Systems and Applications (I-ESA 2014) was held under the motto “interoperability for agility, resilience and plasticity of collaborations” on March 26-28, 2014 and organized by the Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux, France on behalf of the European Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab). On March 24-25, co-located with the conference eight workshops and one doctoral symposium were held in four tracks complementing the program of the I-ESA’14 conference. The workshops and the doctoral symposium address areas of greatest current activity focusing on active discussions among the leading researchers in the area of Enterprise Interoperability. This part of the conference helps the community to operate effectively, building co-operative and supportive international links as well as providing new knowledge of on-going research to practitioners. The workshops and doctoral symposium aimed at exploiting new issues, challenges and solutions for Enterprise Interoperability (EI) and associated domains of innovation such as Smart Industry, Internet-Of-Things, Factories of the Future, EI Applications and Standardisation. These proceedings include the short papers from the I-ESA’14 workshops and the doctoral symposium. The book is split up into 9 sections, one for each workshop and one for the doctoral symposium. All sections were organized following four tracks: (1) EI and Future Internet / Factory of the Future; (2) EI Application Domains and IT; (3) EI Standards; (4) EI Doctoral Symposium. For each section, a workshop report is provided summarizing the content and the issues discussed during the sessions. The goal of the first track was to offer a discussion opportunity on interoperability issues regarding the use of Internet of Things on manufacturing environment (Workshops 1 and 3) on one hand, and regarding the potential of innovation derived from the use of digital methods, architectures and services such as Smart Networks (Workshops 2 and 4) on the other hand. The second track focused on particular application domains that are looking for innovative solutions to support their strong collaborative needs. Thus, the track developed one workshop on the use of EI solution for Future City-Logistics (Workshop 5) and one on the use of EI solutions for Crisis / Disaster Management (Workshop 6). The third track studied the recent developments in EI standardization. Two workshops were dedicated to this issue. The first one has proposed to focus on the management of standardization (Workshop 8) and the second one has chosen to work on the new knowledge on standardization developments in the manufacturing service domain (Workshop 9). The last track, the doctoral symposium presented research results from selected dissertations. The session discussed EI knowledge issues, notably in terms of gathering through social networks or Internet of Things and of exploitation through innovative decision support systems.

This volume provides a concise reference to the state-of-the-art in software interoperability. Composed of over 90 papers, Enterprise Interoperability II ranges from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. The international nature of the authorship continues to broaden. Many of the papers have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas.

A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability VII will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment. Furthermore, it shows how knowledge of the meaning within information and the use to which it will be put have to be held in common between enterprises for consistent and efficient inter-enterprise networks. Over 30 papers, ranging from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability show how, in a scenario of globalised markets, where the capacity to cooperate with other organizations efficiently is essential in order to remain economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective, the most innovative digitized and networked enterprises ensure that their systems and applications are able to interoperate across heterogeneous collaborative networks of independent organizations. This goal of interoperability is essential, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the business structures that are now emerging, such as complex collaborating networks of suppliers and customers, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Establishing efficient and relevant collaborative situations requires the management of interoperability from a dynamic point of view: a relevant and efficient collaboration of organizations may require adaptation to remain in line with changing objectives, evolving resources, unexpected events, etc. Many of the papers contained in this, the eighth volume of Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA’16 Conference from which this book is drawn was organized by the Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho, on behalf of the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and Interop VLab Portuguese Pole.