Subject: Workshop on VENDOR SUPPORT FOR USERS OF ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION
On the ICEIMT Initiative
The United States and the European Commission jointly support an international initiative on consensus building in Enterprise Integration. NIST in the USA and the CIMOSA Association in Europe have organized a series of workshops preceding the ICEIMT'97 conference. Each workshop concentrated on a different topic relevant to enterprise integration with the aim to increase consensus on issues pertaining to the workshop topic. The results of the workshops will be presented at the conference and published in commercially available proceedings.
ICEIMT'97 Objectives: The purpose of the ICEIMT is to develop an international pre-normative consensus among both suppliers and users on a synthesized set of technical issues sufficient to provide a common context for the discussion and comparison of EI technology alternatives. Further, we tried to enumerate the various approaches and characterize them so as to reach consensus on where they overlap, complement, and conflict. Where they conflict, we tried to develop approaches for resolution, potentially leading to collaborative research demonstrations. The workshop reports identify problems and gaps in the current technologies that point to new research. Where applicable, the report refers to relevant standardization efforts aiming on a coherent set of standards supporting enterprise integration.
Workshop 5 Objectives: VENDOR SUPPORT FOR USERS OF ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION
Workshop 5 Themes:
This is matching problems with solutions that are, or are becoming, available. These could be standards, protocols, software products, mediation techniques. Make a state-of-the-art review and increase consensus among tools developers and tool users on model representation and EI capabilities.
Related Themes:
Workshop 5 Format:
June 30: Familiarization--Participants presentations, Development of Expectations
July 1: Direction--Open brainstorming on Alternatives (Workgroups)
July 2: Commitment--Consolidate Workgroup Results, Formulate and adopt plans of action.
E. delaHostria, K. Kosanke, E.R. Noxon, R.H. Weston (editor).
Abstract
The paper presents the results of Working Group 1 of ICEIMT'97 Workshop 5 dealing with benefits of enterprise integration with focus on human teaming in process chains that extend over organisation boundaries. The paper is concluded by a proposal for a research project on improved enterprise cohesion through teaming. Collectively members of the sub-group could represent business and technical end user, vendor, consultancy, systems integrator, researcher and standards making perspectives on enterprise integration requirements. This working group focused discussion on: means by which the benefits of enterprise integration can be expressed in business terms, and how business drivers can be related to different forms (types and classes) of enterprise integration.
In the absence of a common understanding of business, social and technical problem perspectives, normally there is a disconnect between the conceptualisation of business opportunities and the specification, realisation and development of enterprise systems. This disconnect occurs whether such systems are human, techno centred or both. Invariably the result has been the piecemeal implementation and deployment of largely autonomous and isolated human and IT systems in which (a) the degree of alignment between business goals and values and the operation of systems is essentially unknown, and (b) investment in new systems and systems which integrate other systems is difficult to cost justify and may prove costly and ineffective.
Thus there is clear evidence that more ambitious investment in enterprise cohesion is discouraged by the lack of an analytic basis for justifying the business benefits of integration.
It was proposed that an analysis of the relative business benefits of deploying alternative integration techniques could be linked directly to an analysis of "process stream" requirements and thereby the overall capabilities and qualities of a competitive enterprise.
Proposal
Improved Enterprise Cohesion through Teaming - Realising Business Benefits from Enterprise Modelling and Integration
Without a common and quantifiable understanding of potential business benefits arising from use of alternative enterprise integration options, new business opportunities may be missed and existing enterprises may continue to function in a relatively fragmented and thence relatively ineffective way, as the risk of investment in integration technology cannot be justified to shareholders and financiers. Thus there is an urgent need to address this issue and to seek to generalise and formalise the impact of different integration approaches on the cohesiveness of an enterprise; thence potential business benefits that will arise.
The main research issues to be investigated are as follows.
H.T. Goranson, A. Kusiak (editor), J.G. Nell, F. Vernadat.
Abstract.
This paper reports on the discussions and findings of the breakout session "Services for Integration" as part of the Workshop on Vendor Support for Users of Enterprise Integration. So far, services for Enterprise Integration have been very much influenced by information technology (IT) services at the systems and application integration levels because of recent computer related technology developments. The work group focused on integration aspects at higher levels of the enterprise structure, e.g., business level, decision making level. Indeed, business integration is still poorly addressed because it is much more knowledge based and concerns human decision-making. It was generally agreed that as opposed to most functional areas in an enterprise, integration does not have a natural ownership. The latter especially applies to the higher levels of enterprise structure. The aim of this workshop discussion was to attempt to define better where integration is needed at these upper levels.
Proposal
Enterprise Integration services have been very much influenced by recent IT developments and mostly concern system and application integration. Services for enterprise level interaction are not provided at sufficient level due to the lack of: technologies for unified characterization of interfaces, and knowledge about integration. To do this well we need to find out how to identify the missing integration data and knowledge by using the OSI analogy, to encode business rules, to define surrogate representation of complex aspects of a process, and to model trust.
The project is to help enable vendors to develop technology for advanced business integration by:
Return to: ICEIMT'97 home page.
Edited by: JG Nell, NIST. Updated 1997-September-29.
Send message to: nell@nist.gov, or kosanke@ipa.fhg.de, or both.