This paper presents an ontology-based approach for the design of a collaborative business process model (CBP).This CBP is considered as a specification of needs in order to build a collaboration information system (CIS) for a network of organisations. The study is a part of a model driven engineering approach of the CIS in a specific enterprise interoperability framework that will be summarised. An adaptation of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is used to represent the CBP model. We develop a knowledge-based system (KbS) which is composed of three main parts: knowledge gathering, knowledge representation and reasoning, and collaborative business process modelling. The first part starts from a high abstraction level where knowledge from business partners is captured. A collaboration ontology is defined in order to provide a structure to store and use the knowledge captured. In parallel, we try to reuse generic existing knowledge about business processes from the MIT Process Handbook repository. This results in a collaboration process ontology that is also described. A set of rules is defined in order to extract knowledge about fragments of the CBP model from the two previous ontologies. These fragments are finally assembled in the third part of the KbS. A prototype of the KbS has been developed in order to implement and support this approach. The prototype is a computer-aided design tool of the CBP. In this paper, we will present the theoretical aspects of each part of this KbS as well as the tools that we developed and used in order to support its functionalities.
The MISE approach (mediation information system engineering) aims at defining and designing a platform, dedicated to initiate and support any collaborative situation among potential partners. Collaborative situations may emerge from manufacturing contexts (industrial production partners), economic contexts (supply chain), social contexts (crisis management partners) and any other contexts in which a set of organisations should work altogether to reach common and individual goals, exploiting each others competencies. The MISE approach is based on a model-driven engineering vision (MDE) dedicated to designing a mediation information system (MIS) in charge of improving interoperability in emerging collaborative situations. This MIS is dedicated to supporting the collaborative behaviour of the collaborative network by dealing with exchanged data, shared services and collaborative workflows. The final objective is a mediator system able to manage the operational collaboration of partners, through there information system, without constraint (at least with as less constraint as possible). The MIS design crosses the different abstraction layers of design (business, logical and technological) and exploits the associated models at each level to build the models of the next level. This paper presents the models involved (dedicated to the computer independent model, platform independent model and platform specific model levels of the MDE approach) and the transition mechanisms between levels.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.