CIMOSA - News
Vol. 6/2,  date 99-06-15
Editor: Martin Zelm, Gehenbuehlstr. 18A, D-70499 Stuttgart

The CIMOSA - News is published by the CIMOSA Association. The CIMOSA News will report on CIMOSA applications, evolution of its technical specification, advancements in standardisation and related items. Contributions from other parties are welcome. The CIMOSA - News will be printed periodically and is also available in the internet under http://www.cimosa.de .

Contents

New CIMOSA Web Site

The CIMOSA Association is preparing a new Web site which will provide a focal point on Enterprise Engineering and Integration (EE&I). The URL of the new Web site will be http://www.cimosa.de, and it is hosted at the University BW Munich at the Institute of Information Management in Industry, which is chaired by Professor Bernhard Katzy.

The Web site will provide current information on EE&I by identifying relevant publications (title, abstract and source) and structuring the information in different categories and sub-categories. Three main categories have been identified at the web site:

In addition, a Forum capability will be offered which will provide for moderated discussions on specific topics. General search capabilities, links to relevant Web sites and electronic mail will provide further support for Web site users. The previous web site <cimosa.cnt.pl> will stay online for the next 12 months.

Events

IIA/SOCO’99
The third symposia of the International Computer Science Conventions (ICSC) on Intelligent Industrial Automation and Soft Computing held in Genova/Italy from June 1-4, 1999 was addressing research results and industrial applications in soft computing and its main constituents, neural networks, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms as well as development, formalisation and methodologies of problem modelling. The application oriented sessions covered areas of economy and business modelling, hierarchical distributed control and process optimisation and advanced industrial applications of soft computing in medicine, biology and traffic control.

In a special session 'New trends in Enterprise Modelling' organised by Vincent Chapurlat from Ecole de Mines d’Ales/France and supported by the French Groupement de Recherche en Productique (GRP), a CIMOSA invited paper was presented addressing user methodologies and ways to overcome the multiplicity of conflicting particular solutions which hampers the business applications of enterprise modelling. The five papers of the session showed some synergy and proposed solutions for the major issues in enterprise modelling: BP modelling in enterprise networks, the modelling of human, organisational, decisional aspects as well as user oriented languages and methodologies. The proceedings can be ordered at the ICSC web site http://www.icsc.ab.ca.

Simulation Workshop
Simulation plays an increasing role in decision support for planning, operation and monitoring of enterprise processes. The German Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG) held a workshop in Munich on April 22/23 titled ‘Compound simulation competency in co-operation of production and logistics’. The workshop presented recent results of advanced projects from industry and universities focusing on the areas production planning, logistics and supply chain. Simulation can be used as a cross section function capable of integrating inter-organisational aspects like human resources and quality. Simulation itself should be based on process models covering the entire life cycle of the system. Further, the concept of different views on the same model to reduce complexity is widely accepted. However, the acceptance in industry is still far below the business opportunities of model based simulation. Relevant documents may be obtained from the web site http://www.fhg.de.

CIMOSA Applications

Since its market release in late 1994, the FirstSTEP toolset developed by Interfacing Technologies of Montreal, Canada has been proven to be one of the most practical solutions for business process management initiatives. Being a methodology independent enterprise modeling and simulation application, FirstSTEP has been adopted by industry leaders from such diversified sectors as manufacturing, finance, telecom, healthcare, public, and others. Its concept and approach are compatible to the CIMOSA framework. Most notably is the user front-end simplicity that has enabled its acceptance by the typical business user.

A very recent FirstSTEP application is concerned with the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) process at America Online Inc. (AOL). The analysis of the business process helped in the better design of the final ICT solution. Which resulted in a reduction of the elapsed time by 55%, and a reduction of operating costs by 30%. This lead to significantly improved customer satisfaction and the freeing of critical resources.

Book review

‘Handbook on Architectures of Information systems’ edited by P. Bernus, G. Schmidt and K. Mertins, the first volume of a series titled International Handbooks on Information Systems. This volume starts with the basic aspects of information systems, namely architectures and provides a state of the art survey of theory and applications. The book covers a wide range of information system topics like techniques and languages for the description of information systems, software engineering methods for information system construction, tools for analysis and design, reference models and selected topics of integrating infrastructures.

The book covers topics of traditional information systems like organisational analysis and strategic change management methods as well as architectures for enterprise integration. Well known experts from academia and industry have provided contributions, and the editors have succeeded to provide a clear structure of the different topics in the 36 chapters of the book, balancing the level of details within and between the chapters. All chapters offer extensive references for further reading. The general idea of perceiving information systems as components of the integrated enterprise system can be found throughout the whole volume. Source: ISBN 3-540-64453-9 Springer-Verlag 1998, 834 pages.

Co-operations

PRIMA II (EP 20775): After the termination of the project the PRIMA consortium is working on a plan for dissemination of the concept of the management round table and the PRIMA business functional requirements A pilot to demonstrate the PRIMA methodology is under consideration.

DARIF: The final project results will be presented at a workshop at the WBK Institute of Karlsruhe University on June 29, 1999. The CIMOSA contribution is titled model based business process management in SMEs.

Standardisation

ISO TC184/SC5/WG1 held a meeting in London, Ontario, Canada on February 16/18. According to the comments received the DIS status has been changed to FDIS and a second ballot is required by the member countries. Further, The SC 5 chairman conducted a joint session of the working groups 1, 2, 4, and 5, to discuss the feasibility of using common modelling languages in SC 5. Candidates included the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF), Process Specification Language (PSL), Universal Modelling Language (UML), and EXPRESS. Out of these candidates XML and PSL received the highest scores.

CEN TC 310/WG1 has submitted the EMEIS proposal to CEN TC 310 for ballot. The proposal has been registered under preENV 13550 .

Publications

Special Issue in Computers in Industry, on ‘CIMOSA: CIM Open Systems Architecture - Evolution and Application in Enterprise Engineering and Integration’ with papers on evolution and applications of Enterprise Engineering and Integration, tools and infrastructures as well as standardisation. The special issue will be published in 4Q 1999.

Upcoming Events

CIMOSA Promotion material

‘Enterprise Engineering and Integration - Why and How', a primer on concepts, purpose and business value, CIMOSA Association, private publication.

‘CIMOSA - a primer on key concepts, purpose and business value’, and selected papers at CIMOSA web site http://cimosa.cnt.pl .

CIMOSA Literature

‘CIMOSA - Open System Architecture for CIM’; ESPRIT Consortium AMICE, Springer-Verlag 1993, (ISBN 3-540-56256-7), (ISBN 0-387-56256-7)

‘CIMOSA - Open System Architecture for CIM’, Technical Baseline, Version 3.2; CIMOSA Association e.V., private publication 96/02/15.

‘Enterprise Engineering and Integration: Building International Consensus’; Proceedings of ICEIMT’97 Intern. Conference on Enterprise Integration and Modelling Technology; Kosanke, K., Nell, J.G. (Eds.) Springer Verlag 1997, (ISBN 3-540-63402-9)

CIMOSA Association

The CIMOSA Association (COA) is a non-profit organisation involved in promotion of Enterprise Engineering and Integration based on CIMOSA and its active support in national, European and international standardisation. COA members are industrial and research organisations.