This book gathers the proceedings of the I-ESA’18 Conference, which was organised by the Fraunhofer IPK, on behalf of the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and the DFI, and was held in Berlin, Germany in March 2018. It presents contributions ranging from academic research and case studies, to industrial and administrative experiences with interoperability that show how, in a globalised market scenario – where the ability to cooperate with other organisations efficiently is essential in order to remain economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective – the most innovative digitised and networked enterprises ensure that their systems and applications can interoperate across heterogeneous collaborative networks of independent organisations. Furthermore, the content addresses smart services, and the business impact of enterprise interoperability on organisations. Many of the papers in this ninth volume of the I-ESA Conference proceedings include examples and illustrations to help deepen readers’ understanding and generate new ideas. Offering a detailed guide to the state of the art in systems interoperability, the book will be of great value to all engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries, and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in academic settings.

Enterprises and organizations of any kind embedded in today's economic environment are deeply dependent on their ability to take part in collaborations. Consequently, it is strongly required for them to get actively involved for their own benefit in emerging, potentially opportunistic collaborative enterprise networks. The concept of “interoperability” has been defined by INTEROP-VLab as “The ability of an enterprise system or application to interact with others at a low cost in a flexible approach”. Consequently, interoperability of organizations appears as a major issue to succeed in building on the fly emerging enterprise networks. The International Conference on Interoperability for Enterprise Systems and Applications (I-ESA 2014) was held under the motto “interoperability for agility, resilience and plasticity of collaborations” on March 26-28, 2014 and organized by the Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux, France on behalf of the European Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab). On March 24-25, co-located with the conference eight workshops and one doctoral symposium were held in four tracks complementing the program of the I-ESA’14 conference. The workshops and the doctoral symposium address areas of greatest current activity focusing on active discussions among the leading researchers in the area of Enterprise Interoperability. This part of the conference helps the community to operate effectively, building co-operative and supportive international links as well as providing new knowledge of on-going research to practitioners. The workshops and doctoral symposium aimed at exploiting new issues, challenges and solutions for Enterprise Interoperability (EI) and associated domains of innovation such as Smart Industry, Internet-Of-Things, Factories of the Future, EI Applications and Standardisation. These proceedings include the short papers from the I-ESA’14 workshops and the doctoral symposium. The book is split up into 9 sections, one for each workshop and one for the doctoral symposium. All sections were organized following four tracks: (1) EI and Future Internet / Factory of the Future; (2) EI Application Domains and IT; (3) EI Standards; (4) EI Doctoral Symposium. For each section, a workshop report is provided summarizing the content and the issues discussed during the sessions. The goal of the first track was to offer a discussion opportunity on interoperability issues regarding the use of Internet of Things on manufacturing environment (Workshops 1 and 3) on one hand, and regarding the potential of innovation derived from the use of digital methods, architectures and services such as Smart Networks (Workshops 2 and 4) on the other hand. The second track focused on particular application domains that are looking for innovative solutions to support their strong collaborative needs. Thus, the track developed one workshop on the use of EI solution for Future City-Logistics (Workshop 5) and one on the use of EI solutions for Crisis / Disaster Management (Workshop 6). The third track studied the recent developments in EI standardization. Two workshops were dedicated to this issue. The first one has proposed to focus on the management of standardization (Workshop 8) and the second one has chosen to work on the new knowledge on standardization developments in the manufacturing service domain (Workshop 9). The last track, the doctoral symposium presented research results from selected dissertations. The session discussed EI knowledge issues, notably in terms of gathering through social networks or Internet of Things and of exploitation through innovative decision support systems.

A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability VII will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment. Furthermore, it shows how knowledge of the meaning within information and the use to which it will be put have to be held in common between enterprises for consistent and efficient inter-enterprise networks. Over 30 papers, ranging from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability show how, in a scenario of globalised markets, where the capacity to cooperate with other organizations efficiently is essential in order to remain economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective, the most innovative digitized and networked enterprises ensure that their systems and applications are able to interoperate across heterogeneous collaborative networks of independent organizations. This goal of interoperability is essential, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the business structures that are now emerging, such as complex collaborating networks of suppliers and customers, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Establishing efficient and relevant collaborative situations requires the management of interoperability from a dynamic point of view: a relevant and efficient collaboration of organizations may require adaptation to remain in line with changing objectives, evolving resources, unexpected events, etc. Many of the papers contained in this, the eighth volume of Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA’16 Conference from which this book is drawn was organized by the Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho, on behalf of the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and Interop VLab Portuguese Pole.

In 2007 INTEROP-VLab defined Enterprise Interoperability as “the ability of an enterprise system or application to interact with others at a low cost with a flexible approach”. Enterprise Interoperability VI brings together a peer reviewed selection of over 40 papers, ranging from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. It shows how, in a scenario of globalised markets, the capacity to cooperate with other firms efficiently becomes essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, and that the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become interoperable. This goal of interoperability is vital, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the new business structures that are now emerging, such as supply chains, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Establishing efficient and relevant collaborative situations requires managing interoperability from a dynamic perspective: a relevant and efficient collaboration of organizations might require adaptation to remain in line with potentially changing objectives, evolving resources, and unexpected events, for example. Many of the papers contained in this, the seventh volume of Proceedings of the I-ESA Conferences have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA’14 Conference is jointly organised by Ecole des Mines Albi-Carmaux, on behalf of PGSO, and the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and supported by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability VI will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment.

This book gathers the proceedings of the I-ESA’20 Conference, which was organised by the National Engineering School of Tarbes (ENIT), on behalf of the European Virtual Laboratory, for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and the Pole Grand Sud-Ouest (PGSO) and was held virtually in Tarbes, France, in November 2020. It presents contributions ranging from academic research and case studies to industrial and administrative experiences with interoperability. These contributions show how, in a globalised market scenario—where the ability to cooperate with other organisations efficiently is essential in order to remain economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective—the most innovative digitised and networked enterprises ensure that their systems and applications can interoperate across heterogeneous collaborative networks of independent organisations. The focus of this edition of the conference is on interoperability in the era of artificial intelligence and so particular attention is paid to Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things. The content also addresses smart services and the business impact of enterprise interoperability on organisations. Many of the papers in this tenth volume of the I-ESA Conference proceedings include examples and illustrations to help deepen readers’ understanding and generate new ideas. Offering a detailed guide to the state of the art in systems interoperability, the book will be of great value to all engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries, and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in academic settings.

Within a scenario of globalised markets, where the capacity to efficiently cooperate with other firms starts to become essential in order to remain in the market in an economically, socially and environmentally cost-effective manner, it can be seen how the most innovative enterprises are beginning to redesign their business model to become interoperable. This goal of interoperability is essential, not only from the perspective of the individual enterprise but also in the new business structures that are now emerging, such as supply chains, virtual enterprises, interconnected organisations or extended enterprises, as well as in mergers and acquisitions. Composed of over 40 papers, Enterprise Interoperability V ranges from academic research through case studies to industrial and administrative experience of interoperability. The international nature of the authorship contnues to broaden. Many of the papers have examples and illustrations calculated to deepen understanding and generate new ideas. The I-ESA'12 Conference from which this book is drawn was organized by Polytechnic University of Valencia, on behalf INTERVAL, and the European Virtual Laboratory for Enterprise Interoperability (INTEROP-VLab) and sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). A concise reference to the state of the art in systems interoperability, Enterprise Interoperability V will be of great value to engineers and computer scientists working in manufacturing and other process industries and to software engineers and electronic and manufacturing engineers working in the academic environment.