CIMOSA: enterprise engineering and integration

Enterprises are rather complex systems which have to be managed for their internal affairs, but more importantly for the many relations to the different environments in which they are operating. Today, these environments are changing much more rapidly and the need for relevant information becomes of paramount importance in the decision making processes at all levels of enterprise management. Fluctuations in market demands, technology evolution and changing regulations require very flexible enterprise operations, capable of reacting to those changes. These reactions must be based on relevant and up-to-date information which must be supported by new decision support technology. The challenges in decision support concern the identification of relevant information, easy access and intelligent use of this information. Building and maintaining the enterprise knowledge base and enabling its efficient use for decision support are major tasks of enterprise engineering. Enterprise integration and its subsequent operation in the global environment of customers, suppliers and regulatory bodies will heavily depend on the availability and the continuous extension of this knowledge base. Enterprise modelling will play an important role in creating the knowledge base and in using it for enterprise integration and operational decision support. The paper discusses enterprise engineering as an enterprise life-cycle oriented discipline for identification, design, and implementation of enterprises and their continuous evolution. Current problems in the field are identified and initiatives are presented.     

Understanding enterprise systems-enabled integration

A key touted benefit of enterprise systems (ES) is organizational integration of both business processes and data, which is expected to reduce processing time and increase control over operations. In our 3-year longitudinal case study of a phased ES implementation, we employed a grounded theory methodology to discover organizational effects of ES. As we coded and analyzed our field data, we observed many integration effects. Further analysis revealed underlying dimensions of ES-enabled integration. ES-enabled integration varied depending on the relationship between the integrated business units (similar plants, stages in a business process, or dissimilar functional areas) and on whether processes or data were integrated. Turning to the literature, we realized that Thompson's three types of interdependence, pooled, sequential, and reciprocal, captured the business relationships revealed in our data. Thus, we describe the salient characteristics of ES-enabled integration using Thompson's interdependence types applied to process and data integratio n. We also identify dimensions of differentiation between business units that contribute to integration problems. Viewing our field data through the lens of these salient characteristics and dimensions of differentiation provided theoretical explanations for observed integration problems. These findings also help managers understand and anticipate ES-enabled integration opportunities and problems.     

An enterprise integration methodology

As more and more organizations pursue the benefits of e-business, they are looking to a process called enterprise integration, or EI, as a key technical enabler in transforming their business processes. A typical form of EI is Webification; in this scenario, a company wants to offer its existing products and services over the Internet, so it builds Web front-end systems and integrates them to its backend legacy systems. (In this article, we use "legacy system" to mean any IT system already in operation.) A more complex El scenario involves enterprise application integration. By this process, the organization links up previously separate and isolated systems to give them greater leverage. For example, an organization might integrate a customer-relationship-management system, a call center system, and legacy customer account systems to give the organization a consolidated view of its customers. An emerging EI scenario is business-to-business (B2B) integration (also called extended enterprise models), which occurs when an organization integrates its own business processes with those of its business partners to improve efficiency within a collaborative value chain.     

Ontology-based enterprise knowledge integration

Enterprises are getting more knowledge intensive, and the integration of various types of knowledge becomes a challenge. It has been accepted that ontology is an important concept for knowledge integration. In this paper, three issues have been addressed: (i) ontology construction which includes the method and implementation of a Concept Map based ontology construction, and the evaluation of the constructed ontology; (ii) a dynamic workflow, in which an ontology-based workflow system is used to accumulate knowledge during the business process, and (iii) the rules and constraints used for knowledge representation, in which a Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is used to group the rules and constraints into different classes executed by a inference engine. Two cases have been studied using the above methods and tools. Case one is an acquisition prototype for the aircraft industry. The other is for an on-going bar code management project carried out by this research team. Both cases show that the developed methods can be used for knowledge integration.     

企业应用集成中流程集成模型的研究

提出企业应用集成的三个层次,分析流程集成层次的重要性和难点;通过对流程集成的业务分析,参考交通模型,将独立应用内部流程视同市内交通,流程集成视同城际、洲际交通,给出流程集成的业务模型。在此基础上,提出流程集成平台的设计模型,该设计模型由集成流程管理平台和集成流程接口管理平台两部分组成。最后,给出流程平台的体系结构设计示例,并针对该模型中几个较复杂、有特点的模块给出设计示例。     

Metadatabase modeling for enterprise information integration

An underpinning to the notion of computer-integrated enterprises is information integration; that is, the integration of information resources and decision logic across the enterprise to achiete functional synergies. This concept requires certain basic extensions to two previously separate paradigms: information modeling and metadata management. In particular, both paradigms mus consider not only data resources but also contextual knowledge in a unified way; furthermore, they have to converge as a single, integrated method rather than belonging to two distinct stages of a life cycle. Toward this end, a modeling system is developed based on the two-stage entity relationship (TSER) approach [3, 4, 5, 7] and the metadatabase method [5, 6, 8].This paper presents the metadatabase goals and the metadata modeling system, focusing on its basic concepts, design, and current implementation. In addition, the prototype environmental of the metadatabase that this system creates is illustrated through some examples taken from a computer-integrated manufacturing case.A preliminary and shorter version of this paper is presented in:Proceedings 1st International Conference on Systems Integration, IEEE Computer Scociety Press, 1990, pp. 616–624.     

基CORBA/Web技术的企业级信息系统集成

以制造企业产品远程协同设计制造为背景,基于分布式对象CORBA集成平台,在分布式异构网络环境下,研究基于Web的企业信息系统分布式应用互操作层次体系结构、异构信息数据资源及应用系统与Internet/In-tranet的无缝接入方法。针对异地信息资源的远程访问与应用互操作的实现模型、实现方法与支撑机制进行论述,提出了企业级信息系统集成的分布式应用互操作体系结构模型与实现模型。     

基于CORBA／Web技术的企业级信息系统集成

以制造企业产品远程协同设计制造为背景，基于分布式对象CORBA集成平台，在分布式异构网络环境下，研究基于Web的企业信息系统分布式应用互操作层次体系结构、异构信息数据资源及应用系统与Internet／Intranet的无缝接入方法。针对异地信息资源的远程访问与应用互操作的实现模型、实现方法与支撑机制进行论述，提出了企业级信息系统集成的分布式应用互操作体系结构模型与实现模型。     

面向服务的企业应用集成架构研究

对传统的企业应用集成方法进行分析,提出一种基于SOA模型的企业应用集成框架,并讨论了相关的支撑技术;给出了Web Services集成实现模型—传输层、消息层、描述层、保证层和组合层。面向服务的实现企业应用集成框架的方式,能较好地解决企业原有应用系统集成的问题,从而克服了EAI传统解决方案中的缺点,建立了一套独立于语言并且跨平台的系统集成方案,并给出了一个面向服务的企业应用集成系统实例。     

Metrological assurance at industrial enterprise: Problems and solutions

Conceptual and systematic issues regarding the design of metrological assurance system at an industrial enterprise are considered. The system is constructed as a part of quality management system of the enterprise; process approach forms methodological foundation in development and operation of the system. The processes of implementing metrological functions, as well as the system of enterprise standards regulating control mechanisms for these processes are described.     

Designing decision support in an evolving sociotechnical enterprise

Modern manufacturing facilities are subject to organisational, technological, engineering and market constraints. The combination of these factors allows them to be described as sociotechnical enterprises. Control of these enterprises is distributed between human and automated agents who collaborate as part of a joint cognitive system. One of the challenges facing these industries is a need to evolve operations while maintaining stable performance. Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) provides a range of analytical frameworks that can be used to study the effects of change on sociotechnical systems. However, the scale of these enterprises and the range of decision-making styles involved make the selection of an appropriate framework difficult. A critical review of both positivist and hermeneutic approaches to cognitive systems research is provided. Following this a cognitive engineering process is outlined that uses a mixed model approach to describe system functionality, understand the implications of change and inform the design of cognitive artefacts that support system control. A case study examines the introduction of pervasive automation in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and is used to demonstrate the utility of this process.     

Investigating success factors in enterprise application integration: a case-driven analysis

This paper investigates Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). An initial set of CSFs for EAI projects was created based on a review and synthesis of the literature in the general area of integration, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects. A case analysis, involving a large financial services provider integrating its consumer banking systems, was used to validate the CSFs. The findings resulted in a more structured and holistic CSF model which identifies three broad groups of CSFs, namely (1) top management support, (2) overall integration strategy, and (3) EAI project planning and execution. Although EAI projects share many of the same CSFs as ERP projects and other information systems projects, issues related to the selection of the right EAI tool and emphasis on technology planning and enterprise architecture are distinguishing features of EAI projects. Some of practical implications of the research are that EAI projects require personnel with specific skills and expertise, business integration should precede technology integration, that availability of adapters is an important criteria in EAI tool selection and that some custom adapter development may be unavoidable if custom applications need to be integrated.     

Standardisation in ISO for enterprise engineering and integration

The new paradigm of enterprise organisation—extended and virtual enterprises—calls for easy collaboration between partners to exploit market opportunities with varying opportunity windows. Such collaborations can only be achieved if the partner contributions can be easily evaluated by means of process models which represent the relevant parts of the partner operations. However, these models have to be linked to represent the total enterprise of the new partnership and to allow performance evaluation by simulation. To provide the required model inter-operability, the models have to adhere to a common representation for both model enactment and human understandability. International standardisation is a means to provide the necessary model commonality. The paper presents the state of the art in the relevant standardisation and identifies future work in research, development and standardisation.     

基于工作流技术的企业应用系统集成研究

针对目前的企业应用集成在实际应用中集成能力及扩展性差、互操作性不高、忽视业务流程集成、集成平台缺乏灵活性和适应性等缺点,在面向服务的工作流管理系统之上,提出了基于WFM的企业应用集成系统SW-EAI.它具有松散耦合、业务流程集成、高度可集成及互操作能力等优势.主要讨论基于SOA和WFM的企业应用集成的体系架构以及企业应用集成的层次模型.     

基于Agent和XML的企业应用集成模型:NFMAS

目前,系统集成和孤立资源的整合已成为提高企业综合竞争力的关键.提出了一种基于Agent和XML的企业应用集成模型——NFMAS.该模型支持跨平台和跨语言的应用系统集成,能适应企业应用集成中各种层次的集成需求,并且支持工作流管理.     

Architecture research of enterprise aipplication integration based on plugin

企业应用集成已经成为实现企业主要战略目标的必需手段和捷径.胜利油田物探研究院在实施企业信息化规划过程中遇到许多实际问题,不同时期实施的企业应用形成一个个信息孤岛,为企业应用集成带来诸多不便.插件式体系结构的灵活性给企业应用集成提供了一种实现途径.插件技术将应用程序分为主程序和插件程序2个部分,两者之间通过接口实现交互,使系统具有较高的可伸缩性.插件机制实现的技术手段之一是OSGi,OSGi规范的核心框架提供了一个通用、安全、可管理的支持以Bundle方式下载并扩展部署的Java框架.基于OSGi规范和框架的实现的插件式企业应用集成框架,具有灵活性、松耦合、跨平台、扩展性好等特点,能够很好的适应企业应用集成的需要.     

基于插件技术的企业应用集成架构研究

企业应用集成已经成为实现企业主要战略目标的必需手段和捷径。胜利油田物探研究院在实施企业信息化规划过程中遇到许多实际问题,不同时期实施的企业应用形成一个个信息孤岛,为企业应用集成带来诸多不便。插件式体系结构的灵活性给企业应用集成提供了一种实现途径。插件技术将应用程序分为主程序和插件程序2个部分,两者之间通过接口实现交互,使系统具有较高的可伸缩性。插件机制实现的技术手段之一是OSGi,OSGi规范的核心框架提供了一个通用、安全、可管理的支持以Bundle方式下载并扩展部署的.1ava框架。基于OSGi规范和框架的实现的插件式企业应用集成框架,具有灵活性、松耦合、跨平台、扩展性好等特点,能够很好的适应企业应用集成的需要。