Research Network on Interoperability of Applications and Software for Networked Enterprises in the Valencian Region (INTERVAL)

Enterprise interoperability is a tool for enhancing the competitiveness of firms, and its importance is brought out by the fact one of the EC’s strategic aims is to accomplish interoperability among European firms by the year 2010. Nevertheless, in the particular case of the Valencian Region (Spain), research into enterprise interoperability is still badly structured, fragmented, overlapping and, in many cases, practically non-existent. The INTERVAL project has been set up in an attempt to solve this problem. The scheme plans to carry out a series of initiatives aimed at integrating research activities and applying them to the complicated Valencian business sector. By so doing these companies would benefit from the application of knowledge created specifically for them and adapted to fit their characteristics. In this paper we present the details of the project, including its goals, aims, activities, results achieved, the methodology used to accomplish them, the economic and/or technological advantages, as well as possible applications and future lines of research. http://www.ibis-journal.net ISSN:1862-6378 IBIS – Issue 1 (5), 2010 8 © IBIS – Issue 1 (5), 2010 Introduction The capacity of a firm to cooperate with other enterprises in economic, organisational and technological affairs is becoming a key tool for enhancing competitiveness. Nevertheless, current management methods and enterprise technologies generally lack common conceptual approaches that solve the difficulties involved in structuring and interconnecting enterprises at the information, product and decision levels. One of the areas in which research is being conducted with the aim of improving those methods and technologies is enterprise interoperability [CHE03]. Although different definitions of interoperability have been proposed, in this paper we shall be using the definition put forward by the Thematic Network IST-2001-37368 Interoperability Developments for Enterprise Applications and Software (roadmaps) IDEAS [IDE06]. This project, funded by the European Commission, defines interoperability as “the ability of a system or product to work with other systems or products without special effort on the part of the customer”. In the particular case of the Valencian Region, however, research in the domain of interoperability is still badly structured, fragmented, overlapping and, in many cases, practically non-existent. In addition, there is no global vision of consistency or coordination among the different research centres, university laboratories or other bodies. This situation is not only applicable to research, but also to the areas of training and education. On the other hand, it is important to note that the idiosyncrasy of Valencian industry, which is largely made up of firms belonging to a variety of extremely important industrial sectors, makes it impossible to draw on other studies and research works that have been conducted in other European regions. A specific process of analysis and development must therefore be carried out for this particular case. The INTERVAL project was thus designed to address the problems of enterprise interoperability as a means of enhancing the future competitiveness of Valencian firms throughout the world, including SMEs. The project involves carrying out initiatives targeted towards integrating research activities and their applications within the complicated Valencian business sector. By so doing Valencian firms will be able to benefit from systems that have been adapted to fit their particular morphology, culture, customers, etc., and which facilitate and speed up cooperation and the exchange of information and knowledge. Five organisations participate in the project: the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV), the Universitat Jaume I de Castellón (UJI), the Instituto Tecnológico del Mueble, Madera, Embalajes y Afines (AIDIMA – furniture trade association), the Instituto Tecnológico de Alimentación (AINIA – agro-food trade association) and the Instituto Tecnológico de Informática (ITI – ICT trade IBIS – Interoperability in Business Information Systems © IBIS – Issue 1 (5), 2010 9 association). It is important to note that these organisations had already taken part in several of the three most important European initiatives for promoting and researching on enterprise application interoperability, such as the ATHENA-IP project [ATH06], which is part of the European Union’s 5 Framework Programme, and the INTEROP-NoE (Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprise Applications and Software, funded by the 6 Framework Programme of the EU FP6 508011) [INT06]. They therefore had some prior knowledge of the European scene as regards enterprise application interoperability and its possible application to Valencian firms. These organisations today belong to the virtual laboratory for research into enterprise interoperability, INTEROP-VLab, which has its origins in the INTEROP network of excellence and is made up of over 70 European and Asian organisations (enterprises, universities, research centres). Furthermore, in order to carry out some of the activities included within the INTERVAL project it was necessary to seek the collaboration of over 50 firms, which first worked together on collecting data and later to validate the results of the project. Lastly, it is important to note that one of the objectives of the project is for it to act as a unifying element for the whole of the Valencian business community within the area of enterprise interoperability. An extensive programme of dissemination including seminars, meetings, conferences, and so forth will be implemented to this end. Goals of the project One result of the Thematic network IST IDEAS was that it was decided that any work aimed at interoperability research should stress the need to integrate three key thematic components: ontologies, to identify the interoperability semantics in the enterprise; enterprise modelling to define interoperability requirements and to aid the implementation of solutions [DUC04]; and a set of enabling architectures and technologies to provide implementation solutions. Thus, the INTERVAL project aims to extract value from the sustainable integration of these thematic components and to develop industrially significant new knowledge. The project’s role is to create the conditions of a technological breakthrough to prevent the firm’s investment from being simply dragged along by the incremental evolution of the offers in Information Technologies. All these requirements can be transformed into the 5 main goals of the project: Goal 1. Relevance: to set up a stable enduring Valencian research community that focuses on the interoperability of enterprise software applications. Goal 2. Impact: to create the conditions for an innovative and competitive technology transfer by providing an enterprise-based conceptualisation of interoperability. http://www.ibis-journal.net ISSN:1862-6378 IBIS – Issue 1 (5), 2010 10 © IBIS – Issue 1 (5), 2010 Goal 3. Integration: to fit together the 3 key components of knowledge (Ontologies, Enterprise modelling and Architectures and technologies), as well as to prepare a stable and enduring virtual centre based on enterprise interoperability that reaches the highest possible number of research and industrial stakeholders. Goal 4. Organisation and Management: to structure the activities and be flexible enough to adjust the strategy and the work schedule throughout the year the project is to last and to lay the foundations for it to be continued beyond that time. Goal 5. Excellence of the participants: to ensure that the integration process is achieved quickly, by basing the project on a consortium of key researchers and exploiting the experience gained during the Thematic Networks of the 5 and 6 Framework Programmes.