An enterprise integration framework for manufacturing environments

Abstract

Enterprise Integration (EI) deals with increasing interoperability among people, machines and applications to enhance synergy within an enterprise to better achieve business objectives. EI is both an organizational and a technological problem. An enterprise integration framework is presented in this paper for manufacturing environments based on works performed in projects of the European ESPRIT program (AMICE, AIT, OPAL). The framework relies on advanced technologies for systems and application integration (integration platforms, request brokers, electronic data and information interchange standards, workflow engines). It also includes an enterprise modeling framework to deal with business process and organizational aspects at the business integration level, with a special emphasis on human aspects.