International audienceIn a turbulent world, global competition and the uncertainty of markets have led organizations and technology to evolve exponentially, surpassing the most imaginary scenarios predicted at the beginning of the digital manufacturing era, in the 1980's. Business paradigms have changed from a standalone vision into complex and collaborative ecosystems where enterprises break down organizational barriers to improve synergies with others and become more competitive. In this context, paired with networking and enterprise integration, enterprise information systems (EIS) interoperability gained utmost importance, ensuring an increasing productivity and efficiency thanks to a promise of more automated information exchange in networked enterprises scenarios. However, EIS are also becoming more dynamic. Interfaces that are valid today are outdated tomorrow, thus static interoperability enablers and communication software services are no longer the solution for the future. This paper is focused on the challenge of sustaining networked EIS interoperability, and takes up input from solid research initiatives in the areas of knowledge management and model driven development, to propose and discuss several research strategies and technological trends towards next EIS generation

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Nowadays, competition is experienced not only among companies but among global supply chains and business networks. There is a demand for intelligent world-class solutions capable of reinforcing partnerships and collaborations with an improved cross-cultural understanding. However due to the proliferation of terminology, organizations from similar business environments have trouble cooperating, and are experiencing difficulties exchanging electronically vital information, such as product and manufacturing data, even when using international standards. To address similar interoperability problems, the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems program (http://www.ims.org/content/glossary) is providing an opportunity to develop industry-led R&D initiatives, building common semantics and integrated solutions. The SMART-fm project was one of those initiatives. It led to the development of the international standard for product data representation and exchange in the furniture sector (ISO 10303-236) and identified the challenge of semantic interoperability which is today a major challenge in modern enterprise integration. This paper presents a knowledge framework to address that challenge and make interoperable intelligent manufacturing systems a reality. It proposes to use semantically enriched international product data standards, and knowledge representation elements as a basis for achieving seamless enterprise interoperability.

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The industrial panorama is evolving. Using IoT sensors and actuators it is possible to increase product's value, by controlling its production chain. Internet technologies such as FIWARE can provide the services that modern industry needs to process and evaluate sensor data to apply higher production standards, which increase product value. Although FIWARE enablers provide the tools to fulfil modern industry needs, there is an interoperability gap a gap between applications and enablers, as different enablers have different protocols and needs. This article describes an agriculture system developed using vf-OS (virtual factory Operating System), a platform that aims to become the bridge between applications and enablers, as it provides the means to interact with them. The developed system is composed of different applications, that use enablers (integrated using the vf-OS system), current context management and fruit quality theories, to control product quality during the whole fruit production chain.

With the introduction of paradigms like Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems and Cloud Computing, Smart Factories are becoming a central part of today's manufacturing systems. Even though there already are some solutions in the market the full potential for smart manufacturing hasn't yet been achieved. In order to fulfil the gap European researchers are developing vf-OS, a platform that aims to be the future reference in future factories operating systems. In this work is presented some preliminary results regarding the modules related to IoT, event processing, situational awareness and data harmonization that are being researched in the scope of vf-OS to achieve holistic solution for industries, specifically targeting the agriculture domain.

Enterprises are demanded to collaborate and establish partnerships to reach global business and markets. However, due to the different sources of models and semantics, organizations are experiencing difficulties exchanging vital information electronically and seamlessly, even when they operate in related business environments. This situation is even worst in the advent of the evolution of the enterprise systems and applications, whose dynamics result in increasing the interoperability problem due to the continuous need for model adjustments and semantics harmonization. To contribute for a long term stable interoperable enterprise operating environment, the authors propose the integration of traceability functionalities in information systems as a way to support such sustainability. Either data, semantic, and structural mappings between partner enterprises in the complex network should be modelled as tuples and stored in a knowledge base for communication support with reasoning capabilities, thus allowing to trace, monitor and support the stability maintenance of a system's interoperable state.