Means to enable Enterprise Interoperation: CIMOSA Object Capability Profiles and CIMOSA Collaboration View

Abstract

Collaboration between enterprises has moved from regional and national environments to a global one. This has tremendously increased the need for information exchange between collaborating partners. However, non-compatible (heterogeneous) ICT environments and inconsistent semantic and syntax of information to be exchanged are very often barriers in the interoperation process. Nevertheless, the relevant semantic information is usually collected in enterprise models. This information, amended by the corresponding syntax, can be collected in Object Capability Profiles that describe the required and provided information to be exchanged by the partners. An even more elaborate solution could be a new model view that collects all information needed to support intra- and inter-enterprise information exchanges. The authors first propose the exploration of object capability profiles for inter-organisational communication or interoperation applied to CIMOSA and the related international standard CEN/ISO 19440. Object Capability Profiles of objects potentially involved in information exchange will identify both semantic and syntax of the information to be exchanged. Comparison between required and provided information will detect any mismatch between the two and would allow automatic or manual corrections. In addition, collaboration aspects are proposed to be modelled in a specific modelling view called Collaboration View. After recalling elements of the CIMOSA modelling language, the paper presents a proposal for both the Object Capability Profiling and the Collaboration View. A simplified illustrative example demonstrates the applicability of the two proposals.