Information systems for enterprise integration, interoperability and networking: theory and applications

Hervé Panetto (1) , Joe Cecil (2)

1 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
2 CIBM - Center for Information based Bioengineering and Manufacturing

Today, enterprises can be characterized by various key facets: globalization, distributed manufacturing, data and knowledge management, advanced automation and robotics, virtual engineering, rapid response to market and more. In today's competitive economy, enterprises need collaborating using Information Technology (IT) and other tools to succeed in this dynamic and heterogeneous business environment. Enterprise integration, interoperability and networking are some of the major disciplines that are enabling companies to improve collaboration and communication in the most effective way. In this direction, the enterprise information systems engineering process aims to develop information systems to respond to increasingly complex objectives, to align these information systems with business goals and processes of the company, or simply to adapt and improve them when facing given requirements or rapidly changing opportunities. As enterprise information systems models become more ubiquitous, the sharing of best-in-class models becomes more desirable. Interoperability between dissimilar systems in sharing information is important, but other aspects are also required in the sharing of enterprise systems knowledge. First, this process is based on the need for collaboration, sharing and mutual understanding of the needs of each stakeholder i.e. each persons involved or affected by the future information system, at each stage of its development. Second, this process follows principles which highlight the need for formal semantics definition of these models to facilitate this work, at various abstraction levels ranging from specification to implementation on site. There is a need to also couple new theoretical results with applied methods and tools supporting existing business reconfiguration and transformation both locally and globally. In this editorial, we reflect on the current and future theory and applications that would further empower networked enterprises by means of collaborative information systems.

Mots clés: Enterprise Information Systems; Integration; Interoperability; Collaborative enterprise

Domaines: Ingénierie assistée par ordinateur

Hervé Panetto, Joe Cecil. Information systems for enterprise integration, interoperability and networking: theory and applications. Enterprise Information Systems, 2013, 7 (1), pp.1-6. ⟨10.1080/17517575.2012.684802⟩. ⟨hal-00686500⟩