Overview

This standard considers interoperability as a generic concept designed to overcome common problems of interoperability and to identify and develop solutions for enterprises. Therefore, this standard considers enterprise interoperability to be an engineering discipline and separates it from business-related issues. Interoperability shall be seen as a necessary support to enable both inter- and intra-enterprise interoperability. Enterprise systems can often fail to interoperate due to barriers of various categories. Overcoming these interoperability barriers is an important step for interoperation. This standard identifies three categories of interoperability barriers: conceptual, technological, and organizational. Additionally, concepts which lead to the preparation of a Framework for Enterprise Interoperability are identified. Enterprise interoperability as an engineering discipline is not yet well defined. There are many definitions and connotations associated with interoperability in different sectors and domains. This leads to communication difficulties and misunderstandings. Consequently, it is essential to define the concept of "interoperability" as it is associated with the importance and the objectives of enterprise interoperation. Barriers to interoperability shall be categorised in a standardized way. Existing interoperability knowledge and solutions for overcoming barriers need to be correlated in order to take interoperability into account in design, development and implementation and thus to support interoperation in industry. The purpose of this standard is to assist in the identification of barriers and to find potential solutions and the relationships between them. This standard describes the foundation for interoperation in manufacturing enterprises and describes the types "unified", "integrated" and "federated". This standard addresses requirements for exchange of information and objects, such as material objects and energy. It does not describe the specific mechanisms for the exchange. This standard describes how interoperability can be achieved and, along with barriers, addresses domains in which interoperability problems/concerns (business, process, service and data) occur. The standard introduces approaches on how these problems and barriers can be addressed so that both inter- and intra-enterprise cooperation is made available and maintained in the future as well. Due to the abstract description this standard presents a guideline which can be applied to all types of enterprises. No one person can be entrusted with the application of this standard. The successful attainment of enterprise interoperability, internally or externally, requires project work in groups. This group should be so constituted that it represents the entirety of knowledge about the enterprise (or partner enterprises) as regards interoperability issues. This standard deals with interoperability concerns as those relating to business, processes, services (different types of services) and data and presents how these can be allocated to the three categories, namely conceptual, technological and organizational. This standard can serve as a guide particularly for international and global cooperations, for in these cases cultural differences often present challenges to be dealt with within the category "organizational". These differences shall be identified and a technical/technological implementation is to be achieved by means of common concepts. Since cross-enterprise project work in usually carried out in English, the English version of this standard shall be given preference. This document contains the German version of EN ISO 11354-1:2011, which has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC184 "Automation systems and integration" in cooperation with Technical Committee CEN/TC 310 "Advanced automation technologies and their applications" at the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). The national interests during the preparation were represented by Committee NA 060-30-05 AA "Architektur, Integration und Kommunikation" ("Architecture, integration and communication") at DIN.

Document: references other documents

Responsible national committee

NA 060-30-05-01 AK - Modelling and architecture  

Responsible european committee

CEN/TC 310/WG 1 - Systems architecture