Enterprise Architecture, Integration, and Interoperability and the
Networked enterprise have become the theme of many conferences in the
past few years. These conferences were organised by IFIP TC5 with the
support of its two working groups: WG 5. 12 (Architectures for
Enterprise Integration) and WG 5. 8 (Enterprise Interoperability), both
concerned with aspects of the topic: how is it possible to architect and
implement businesses that are flexible and able to change, to interact,
and use one another's s- vices in a dynamic manner for the purpose of
(joint) value creation. The original qu- tion of enterprise integration
in the 1980s was: how can we achieve and integrate - formation and
material flow in the enterprise? Various methods and reference models
were developed or proposed - ranging from tightly integrated monolithic
system - chitectures, through cell-based manufacturing to on-demand
interconnection of bu- nesses to form virtual enterprises in response to
market opportunities. Two camps have emerged in the endeavour to achieve
the same goal, namely, to achieve interoperability between businesses
(whereupon interoperability is the ability to exchange information in
order to use one another's services or to jointly implement a service).
One school of researchers addresses the technical aspects of creating
dynamic (and static) interconnections between disparate businesses (or
parts thereof).