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TC184 SC5 WG1 View of Enterprise-Reference-Architecture Standards

• TC184 SC5 WG1 has reviewed the composite generic enterprise-reference architecture, GERAM, Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodologies, developed by the IFAC/IFIP Task Group on Enterprise Integration. WG1 deems the GERAM to be complete, to cover the entire life cycle of an enterprise, and to have a structure such that human capabilities can be modeled as enterprise activities. WG1 has developed ISO 15704, Requirements for enterprise-reference architectures and methodologies, and has included the GERAM as an informative annex to that standard. The purpose of that standard is to allow someone to compare specific instances of enterprise-reference architecture and the GERAM, which is known to be complete.
• WG1 feels that the development of architectures and enterprise designs by enterprises will continue regardless of any attempt to standardize them. In fact standardizing these things may impede the integration process. WG1 is not standardizing an architecture since architectures are best developed for the specific needs of the developer; for example each enterprise will choose its own life-cycle focus and set of processes that it needs.
• WG1 recognizes that technology is developing in several areas simultaneously and the specific technology that one enterprise process will confront upon either an intra-enterprise or an inter-enterprise interaction event will change continuously. Therefore the reasonable approach, it seems to WG1, is to provide for and encourage mediating capability. Process interactions should allow each side to advertise with which technologies and level of technology it is equipped, and let the process software mediate the communication rather that standardize everything in advance. This will encourage development in the vendor community and a use of de-facto standards that may allow developments and interoperability to occur simultaneously.

TC184 SC5 WG1 View of Enterprise-Model Standards

• The TC184/SC5/WG1 standard ISO 14258, Concepts and rules for enterprise models, is a top-level document that provides the concepts that relate to creating enterprise models for all manufacturing enterprises. Enterprise-reference architectures should be developed with the ISO14258 enterprise-model concepts in mind. Then, models developed for use within that architecture will be consistent with models developed for an enterprise-reference architecture developed by another group. This way, WG1 does not have to rationalize each and every group that decides to create another architecture.
• Given any enterprise-representation architecture, a good set of enterprise models will enable many things. For example: enterprise managers can make more informed, phased, investments to improve integration capability; enterprise information can be more easily sharable in both intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise scenarios; enterprise performance can be better predicted; enterprise engineering and simulation can be more consistent; and enterprise operators can have a better and more consistent understanding of the complex interactions among processes.
• The WG1 responsibility in this approach is for our standards to give a guideline structure and rules for the information required on each side of the mediation. This structure is what was envisioned for the ISO14258; that is to present rules, guidelines and constraints for enterprise models. Each compliant model would contain the same sort of information that the mediation process would need to effect interoperability.

TC184 SC5 WG1 View of Process Interoperability Standards

• WG1 envisions a standards model that does not set specific limits to everything. Rather, such a standards set would force enterprises to analyze and document, perhaps electronically on line, what they do; and then operate their enterprise accordingly. Lower-level standards would still define interfaces and the supplying process would indicate which ones apply, together with the set of information they present on line about their processes. This way, an enterprise shopping for a process would be able to evaluate, on line, that a process meets both quality and capability guidelines and that they conform to acceptable interface standards. The shopping enterprise could then advise its software to make any needed adjustments to its enterprise models (function, hardware, software, communication, and information), establish a relationship, and operate at a level of integration that is acceptable to both parties.

• WG1 plans to not standardize the enterprise, parts of the enterprise, the information transferred, its products, or its processes. WG1 does envision standards for product descriptions, for example STEP, and the process descriptions, for example CEN ENV 12204 extended. WG1 envisions standards covering the interfaces and the nomenclature, and the formats and allow the enterprise-tool builders to use these standards to design software in such a way as to allow the processes to communicate.

Return to: WG1 Home Page.
Edited by: JG Nell, TC184 SC5 WG1 convener ( nell@nist.gov.), Updated 1999-September 15.