Peter Bernus
<bernus@kurango.cit.gu.edu.au>
April, 1999
One of the most important characteristics of today's enterprises is that they are facing a rapidly changing
environment and can no longer make predictable long term provisions. To adapt to this change enterprises themselves
need to evolve and be reactive so that change and adaptation should be a natural dynamic state rather then something
occasionally forced onto the enterprise. This necessitates the integration of the enterprise operation and the
development of a discipline that organises all knowledge that is needed to identify the need for change
in enterprises and to carry out that change expediently and professionally. This discipline is called Enterprise
Integration or Enterprise Engineering.
Previous research, carried out by the AMICE Consortium on CIMOSA, by the GRAI Laboratory on GRAI and GIM, and by
the Purdue Consortium on PERA, (as well as similar methodologies by others) has produced reference architectures
which were meant to be organising all enterprise integration knowledge and serve as a guide in enterprise integration
programs. The IFIP/IFAC Task Force analysed these architectures and concluded that even if there were some overlaps,
none of the existing reference architectures subsumed the others; each of them had something unique to offer. The
recognition of the need to define a generalised architecture is the outcome of the work of the Task Force.
Starting from the evaluation of existing enterprise integration architectures (CIMOSA, GRAI/GIM and PERA), the
IFAC/IFIP Task Force on Architectures for Enterprise Integration develops an overall definition of a generalised
architecture. The proposed framework is entitled ‘GERAM’ (Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology).
GERAM is about those methods, models and tools which are needed to available to build and maintain various forms
of the integrated enterprise, be it a part of another enterprise, a single enterprise or a network of enterprises,
virtual enterprises or extended enterprises.
GERAM defines a tool-kit of concepts for designing and maintaining enterprises for their entire life-history. GERAM
is not yet-another-proposal for an enterprise reference architecture, but is meant to organise existing enterprise
integration knowledge. The framework has the potential for application to all types of enterprise. Previously published
reference architectures can keep their own identity, while identifying through GERAM their overlaps and complementing
benefits compared to others.