The application of interoperability requirement specification and verification to collaborative processes in industry

Abstract

Interoperability is becoming a crucial issue for industry, and a lack of interoperability can be seen as an important barrier to collaborative work, in both public (inter-enterprise) and private (intra-enterprise) collaborative processes. Indeed, interoperability is generally defined as the ability of enterprises to interact within a collaborative process. Prior to any effective collaboration, it is necessary to inform enterprises, which aim to work together, whether or not they would be able to interoperate. Research on interoperability has shown the benefits of measuring and evaluating interoperability, by using several frameworks and maturity models. However, approaches for detecting and anticipating interoperability problems do not seem to exist. Our research proposes to use formal verification techniques to detect different types of interoperability problems. On the one hand, this means being able to define the particular interoperability needs to be considered. On the other hand, it requires these needs to be formalized as a set of unambiguous and, as formally stated as possible, requirements. Moreover, interoperability requirements can have temporal or a-temporal features. To detect interoperability problems in anticipative way, interoperability requirements must be checked by means of a target process model. Three complementary verification techniques are used to verify interoperability requirements in a collaborative process model. The verification technique used depends on the aspect and the level of abstraction of the requirement to be verified. This paper focuses and illustrates the detection of interoperability problems using verification techniques.