Providing a semantic description for an interoperability framework using ontologies

Nowadays enterprises require the development of new solutions that could enhance the interoperability among the partners of a supply chain; a key point in this scenario is represented by data integration mechanisms between such enterprises. In this context semantic descriptions of data and information is emerging as a critical component in a really interoperable framework upon which to implement this integration.. Starting from these considerations, the authors propose in this paper an approach to support a document-based framework for a standardisation initiative (based upon the ebXML meta-model and the ISO 11179 compliant vocabulary) introducing ontology–based descriptions in order to exploit semantic information to improve the data integration between enterprises. The use context of this work is the Textile/Clothing sector, where the composition of heterogeneous information systems is really critical.