Internet-Based Solutions for Manufacturing Enterprise Systems Interoperability - A Standards Perspective

1 Introduction This chapter reviews efforts of selected standards consortia to develop Internet-based approaches for interoperable manufacturing enterprise information systems. The focus of the chapter is on the efforts to capture common meaning of data exchanged among interoperable information systems inside and outside a manufacturing enterprise. We start this chapter by giving a general overview of the key concepts in standards approaches to enable interoperable manufacturing enterprise systems. These approaches are compared on the basis of several characteristics found in standards frameworks such as horizontal or vertical focus of the standard, the standard message content definitions, the standard process definitions, and dependence on specific standard messaging solutions. After this initial overview, we establish one basis for reasoning about interoperable information systems by recognizing key manufacturing enterprise objects managed and exchanged both inside and outside the enterprise. Such conceptual objects are coarse in granularity and are meant to drive semantic definitions of data interchanges by providing a shared context for data dictionaries detailing the semantics of these objects and interactions or processes involved in data exchange. In the case of intra-enterprise interoperability, we recognize enterprise information processing activities, responsibilities, and those high-level conceptual objects exchanged in interactions among systems to fulfill the assigned responsibilities. Here, we show a mapping of one content standard onto the identified conceptual objects. In the case of inter-enterprise interoperability, we recognize key business processes areas and enumerate high-level conceptual objects that need to be exchanged among supply chain or trading partners.