Date: 1998-February
Source: WG1 Secretary

1. CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by Jim Nell, WG 1 Convenor, at 08.45 on Tuesday, 10 February 1998. The following were in attendance:

Jim Nell, NIST (USA), WG 1 Convenor
Greg Winchester, NEMA (USA), WG 1 Secretary and SC 5 Secretary
Jim Nevins, Consultant (USA)
David Shorter, IT Focus (UK)
Kurt Kosanke, CIMOSA Association (Germany)
Peter Bernus, Griffith University (Australia), IFAC/IFIP TF Chairman
Jean-Jacques Michel, CETIM (France)
Paul Gilders, Loughborough University (UK)
Richard Weston, Loughborough University (UK)

2. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS MEETING MINUTES (N 408)

Members approved the minutes of the October 1997 WG 1 meeting held in Turin, Italy with the following comments:

3. REVIEW OF AGENDA (N 410) AND MEETING OBJECTIVES

A report on the activities of the JTC1 ODP project, to be given by Kurt Kosanke, was added as item 4d.

It was decided that the WG1 meeting should focus strictly on the requirements of enterprise reference architectures and methodologies for the next version of WD 15704 (this version and all subsequent versions will carry a version number and/or date on the front page). Peter Bernus, as IFAC/IFIP TF Chairman, would hold ad hoc editing meetings after the daily WG1 sessions to make any updates to the GERAM annex according to changes made to the requirements.

Members expressed confusion regarding what version of the GERAM annex is valid as there are actually three: N405 (from Ted Williams, introduced in Turin, N398 (v1.5, after Paris), and an unnumbered version (updated by Ted Williams) posted on the WG1 web site. To resolve this issue, it was agreed that the after-hours IFAC/IFIP editing meetings will produce an updated GERAM annex using v1.5 as the base. It was also agreed that the Editor for WD 15704 would not modify this updated annex.

The following documents were introduced at the meeting for discussion in agenda item 6 (ISO 15704):

N 413 1997-12-19 Comments from Kurt Kosanke re N 405

N 414 1998-02-02 Comments by J. Nell and T. Williams re N 413

N 415 1998-02-04 Comments by David Shorter re N 418

N 416 Contribution by François Vernadat for Clauses 2 and 3 of WD 15704

N 417 Input from R. Weston and P. Gilders for the February 1998 WG 1 Meeting

N 418 WD 15704 (Requirements for Enterprise Reference Architectures and Methodologies), 4th Draft, dated 1998-
01-06

N 419 "Draft Mandate for Next Stage Stuff of WG1 & the IFAC/IFIP Task Force"
Richard Weston for Discussion at the February 1998 WG 1 Meeting

4. REPORTS OF RELATED ACTIVITIES
a) IFAC/IFIP Task Force

Peter Bernus reported that the Task Force had last met in conjunction with the October 1997 ICEIMT conference and heard presentations from Ford and Chrysler regarding their enterprise integration experience. The Task Force concluded that, while Ford and Chrysler had different and quite specific projects to address, its work was still too abstract. Thus, it passed a resolution to popularize the architecture and framework, and continually explain it to industry about how it is used. The Task Force also recognized from the ICEIMT conference that it must deal with human issues, i.e. integrating humans in the organization, and must begin acquiring membership expertise in this area.

The Task Force saw a need arising from the Ford and Chrysler presentations regarding the integration of design and manufacturing functions within the enterprise, and felt that WG 1 might be in a position to address this.

b) ICEIMT ‘97

Kurt Kosanke mentioned the November 1997 ICEIMT workshop that followed the October conference. The workshop had discussed what work would be required to address needs expressed at the October conference, and a number of organizations appeared interested in participating in this work. More ICEIMT workshops are to be held in Europe in Q2, 1998.

c) CEN/TC 310/WG 1

David Shorter reported that CEN/TC 310/WG 1 is 99% certain of reactivating and has scheduled a March 1998 meeting as the first of four meetings in 1998 to work on EMEIS (integrating modular components). TC 310/WG 1 is concerned with interoperability of applications and the EMEIS standard would be used as a reference framework for the interworking of tools.

d) JTC 1 ODP

It was reported that François Vernadat had suggested that WG 1 review certain ODP standards as they discuss the enterprise role in ODP. The ODP effort, which was formerly housed in JTC 1/SC 21/WG 7 and is now splintered into several groups in JTC 1/SC 33, is in the process of defining terms currently used by the IT community.

5. REPORT FROM THE SC 5 SECRETARIAT

Greg Winchester reported that the current status with the FDIS ballot of ISO 14258 (Rules and guidelines for enterprise models) is unknown despite two attempts to obtain this status from the ISO Central Secretariat. It was noted that the request to the ISO Central Secretariat to issue the FDIS ballot was circulated to WG 1 as document N 411.

It was also mentioned that the ISO Central Secretariat has logged a publication target of January 2002 for the 15704 project (Requirements and methodology for enterprise-reference architectures). The project was logged in at stage 2 on January 1997 and, thus, with the current ISO timelines, a CD should be available by mid-1998. WG 1 members felt that this target was definitely attainable.

It was finally reported that the ISO Technical Management Board had approved some alternative operating procedures for TCs/SCs. These include the elimination of the CD ballot, as well as the FDIS ballot if the voting on the DIS is 100% affirmative. These alternatives are being implemented on a trial basis, and the SC 5 Secretariat intends to seek permission from the SC 5 membership to implement them on SC 5 projects.

6. NEAR- AND LONG-TERM STANDARDS PLAN

It was felt that v2.0 of the SC 5 strategic plan, which was circulated to all SC 5 members for comment so that it could be discussed at the May 1998 plenary meeting, does not explicitly address what WG 1 needs to work on. Thus, WG 1 members began to identify areas of work that would meet industry needs. Richard Weston then developed N 419 which provides a top-down description of what the enterprise integration landscape is and what may be needed (but not necessarily from an ISO standards viewpoint) to achieve enterprise agility. Members felt thatN 419 is a good start and should be revised to specifically address what WG 1 should be working on, taking into account what resources and expertise are needed. ACTION ITEM: Richard Weston to arrange a presentation on reconfiguration for the WG 1 meeting in Paris.

7. ISO 15704 (ENTERPRISE-REFERENCE ARCHITECTURES)

The vast majority of the meeting was taken up by a review of N 418. Peter Bernus served as editor, making numerous technical and editorial changes to the electronic version of the draft per the discussions. Kurt Kosanke, Jim Nell, and Greg Winchester took written notes of the changes for comparison purposes.

During the review, members cross-checked the annex of N 413 with the text of clause 4 of N 418 to ensure that no concepts were excluded in the new WD version. Members did find that the notions of views and life history were missing from both N 413 and N 418. ACTION ITEM: Greg Winchester/Jim Nell to ensure that views and life history are put on the agenda for discussion at the May 1998 meeting in Paris.

It was generally felt that there would be no normative references in this standard and that, instead, there would be an extensive bibliography as part of an informative annex. ACTION ITEM: WD 15704 Editor to incorporate the references submitted by Francois Vernadat in N 416 in a bibliography annex.

ACTION ITEMS: Jim Nell/Greg Winchester to reconcile Peter Bernus’ electronic version with written notes taken, perform some necessary editorial modifications, and then forward the modified draft to Ted Williams prior to the Paris meeting. Peter Bernus to maintain a log of changes made at this meeting for use in updating the GERAM annex.

It was agreed that any discrepancies between the principles mentioned in the WD 15704 introduction (clause 0) and in the requirements (clause 4) need to be identified so they can be resolved at the Paris meeting. ACTION ITEM: Kurt Kosanke to send a list of any such discrepancies to the WG 1 email exploder prior to the Paris meeting.

8. SCHEDULE AND OBJECTIVES FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

As already arranged with host AFNOR, the next WG 1 meeting will be held Monday-Wednesday, 11-13 May 1998 at AFNOR’s headquarters in the Tour Europe in Paris (La Défense), France.

It was decided to hold another WG 1 meeting in November 1998 in order to review country comments to the CD 15704 ballot. This meeting will also be used to discuss future WG 1 work per an updated N 419. Peter Bernus offered to host this meeting in the Brisbane, Australia area, perhaps in conjunction with a JTC 1 activity.

9. OTHER BUSINESS

Copies of a slide presentation given by Bernd Wenzel (EuroSTEP) on "Integration of Industrial Data" were distributed to members as information.

10. ADJOURNMENT

Upon thanking NIST for its hospitality, the meeting adjourned at 15.00 on 12 February 1998.

REPORTED BY: Greg Winchester
WG 1 Secretary