This document is available at (including attachments / documents table) http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/Meetings/Beijing1999/minutes.html
If you are only interested in the outcome of this meeting see Mandate items identified as key and to be pursued in the next triennium 1999-2002 at the end of this document
Minutes
IFIP/IFAC Task Force on Enterprise Integration
Beijing International Conference Centre
1pm – 6pm, 5 July 1999
Present:
Peter Bernus
Yuliu Chen
Gernot Kronreif (representing Peter Kopacek)
Laszlo Nemes
Francois Vernadat
Ljubo Vlacic
Ted Williams (from Monday 5pm)
1. Minutes of last meeting
The chair tabled meeting reports for the Sanctuary Cove meeting. Members requested amendment regarding the discussion on human / organisational modelling. The chair undertook corrections including omissions from the list of participants. Corrected minutes available at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/Meetings/brisbane98/invitation.html#WORKSHOP
The present meeting was preceded by a number of face-to-face discussions in Verdal, Trondheim, Kobenhavn, Izlake and Loughborough between Peter Bernus, Guy Doumeingts, Artoro Molina, Francois Vernadat, Ziqiong Deng, Johan Vesterager, Brane Kalpic, Richard Weston, David Shorter, John Edwards.
2. New Agenda Items
Prof Yuliu Chen was asked to present an overview of Experience on EI / CIM implementation in China (scheduled for 8 July meeting) (agenda has been updated on the TF website). The rest of the minutes follows the amended agenda numbering. (Documents on Economic modelling [1] and a Stair-like CIM system architecture [2] have been distributed.)
3. Report on Verdal IEMC99 Conference: Peter Bernus
Peter Bernus gave a brief account on the successful IEMC99 Conference in Verdal, organised by SINTEF / Prof Rolstadas. To our knowledge the preprints (articles) may be purchased from SINTEF.
Selected articles will appear later in the International Journal of Production Planning and Control (IJPPC). In particular the discussion on the definition of virtual enterprise and the vision developed in a discussion group has been presented. These slides have previously been made available as Verdal ICEM99 discussion results at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/overview/scope_disc99.html
4. Human modelling- proposals for future work: Richard Weston
Professor Weston has not been able to attend, his contributions are available at the current mandate discussion http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/overview/scope_disc99.html
Note that these modelling requirements will have strong influence on the development of constructs on human role / competency modelling.
5./7. Report on ISA standardisation activities/ Report on PERA applications at Flour Daniels Ted Williams Ted Williams
Ted Williams distributed several documents describing current work using PERA at Flour Daniels. Members not present and wishing to obtain a copy please mail to Peter Bernus.
6. Report on enterprise modelling discussion in Verdal: Francois Vernadat
These slides have previously been made available as Verdal ICEM99 discussion results also at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/overview/scope_disc99.html
The discussion underlined the importance of developing UEML.
8. Report on EI work in the Globeman 21 consortium Laszlo Nemes
Laszlo Nemes presented an evaluation [8], of the work done in Globeman 21 which consortium accepted GERAM as one of the bases for its Common Concept (document written by TU Denmark team, based on contributions from industry partners in the consortium, such as Toyo Engineering, Odensee and discussions with a long list of industry partners).
While further work needs to be done to make it simpler for end users to use the results for the formation of networks and virtual project enterprises, the Globeman 21 project had strategic impact on a number of industry participants. A new consortium (GLOBEMEN) is also being formed to investigate the methods and techniques that end users can apply for virtual enterprise formation and management.
9. ISO TC184 plans and new work items Jim Nell
Jim Nell was not able to be present at this part of the agenda, please refer to the roadmap documents at the current mandate discussions: http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/overview/scope_disc99.html
Related documents are David Shorter’s contribution to the mandate discussions and David’s faxed statement of interest, which is in support of standards in the enterprise engineering methodology area. (As will be seen later this item – albeit very important – has not been selected on the TF shortlist of next work items. However, this will be an important next work item in ISO TC184/SC5/WG1 and individual members will contribute).
10. New mandate items: Peter Bernus
The document ‘Peter Bernus: Proposed work items for the IFIP-IFAC Task Force (June 1999)’ was presented. This document presents four work items for the Task Force. Document available at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/overview/scope_disc99.html
11. Discussion
Members felt that even this shortlist is long for the Task Force to undertake, while additional work items have been proposed by members in the current mandate discussion.
Thus a simple prioritised shortlist was required by the members. Also it has been found that the work items needed different type of expertise thus explanations need to cater for all disciplines involved.
In GERAM terminology new work items are needed in the technical areas of methodology, modelling framework (potentially – regarding the positioning of economic aspects), modelling languages and generic concepts (ontologies), and reference models. The Task Force needs to select those which are necessary and within the possibilities of the members. This generally means that they must have their own funded research projects, which will provide input, since the Task Force has no resources.
12. Leaders of interest groups / chairmanship
At the 5 July meeting there was no consensus regarding the need to change the organisation. Francois Vernadat tabled the proposal to have separate chairs for the IFIP and IFAC arms of the Task Force, while Peter Bernus maintained the view that these groups are only ‘footprints’ of the Task Force in IFIP and IFAC and therefore they need to remain one. Since agreement could not be reached the planned 8 July meeting was changed to run from 9:30 am to 4 pm instead of 1pm-4 pm to0 allow sufficient time for the discussion, and the meeting was adjourned till 8 July.
Special Session
On 6 and 7 July two Special Sessions on Social and Organisational Aspects of Enterprise Integration were held at the IFAC World Congress. The sessions were sponsored by the Task Force / TC MIA. Papers available in the proceedings of the 14th World Congress of IFAC (published by Elsevier) also available in CDROM format (Those with * not presented but available in the proceedings)
Minutes
IFIP/IFAC Task Force on Enterprise Integration
8 July 1999
Present:
Peter Bernus
Yuliu Chen
Gernot Kronreif (representing Peter Kopacek)
Laszlo Nemes
Francois Vernadat
Jim Nevins
Ljubo Vlacic
Ted Williams
Quing Li and Weidong Feng (Guests from Tsinghua University)
During informal meetings, after the special sessions of the Task Force, it was decided to extend the time allocated for discussions of the new mandate to the morning of the 8th July. (This was due to late arrival of key members and to the initial disagreement on organisational issues which needed extra discussion time.)
9:30 – 12:00
13. New mandate proposals by Francois Vernadat
Francois Vernadat tabled a set of slides listing a number of possible work items including their categorisation as to whether they are more IFAC or IFIP competencies. [6]
14. New mandate proposals by Peter Bernus
Peter Bernus tabled an extended document [3] incorporating the proposals on behalf of Weston, Shorter and Nell, altogether sixteen points.
15. Discussion
Members were given time to overview all tabled documents and started to draw together the individual tasks. It was felt that two focus points: the Enterprise Reference Model and UEML tasks were the most important and members decided to continue discussion on this basis. Technically other tasks are also important to undertake and members felt a need to prioritise due to resource problem.
13:00 – 16:00
14. Prof Yuliu Chen EI and CIM in China
Professor Chen outlined [9] the ‘863’ programme on CIM systems research and development in China. There are approx 200 CIM implementations currently.
The presentation has given interesting definitions of information integration, process integration, and enterprise integration, and presented in detail Prof Chen’s proposal of including an economic view in the reference architectures of today.
15. Finalisation of mandate items
After much deliberation and heated debate we have come to a conclusion regarding the next mandate of the Task Force. At least we determined those items on which there was consensus as being the most important tasks to pursue and where critical mass appears to be present. This does not preclude other work items from being considered in the future as long as there is willingness on members' behalf to substantially contribute and lead the development of a new work item.
Mandate items identified as key and to be pursued in the next triennium 1999-2002
I. Enterprise Modelling - development of UEML.
Assessment and report on the technical content of work to develop an international consensus on enterprise modelling languages. The effort will be co-ordinated by Francois Vernadat. By the next meeting (December 1999) the work item will be technically flashed out to the detail such that it can be reasonably expected that this effort of the Task Force will lead to a successful outcome.
As members noted this task is both technically challenging and politically difficult, and will need the input of enterprise engineering expertise (constructs needed) and computer science expertise (define their semantics), as well as taking into account the implementation realities and using the contribution of major modelling tool and information integration platform developers.
The task therefore includes the assessment of who the key players are and securing their co-operation and collaboration as well as defining the co-ordinating role of the Task Force in the area. Certainly the interests and the stakes are high and we must set realistic goals.
It is expected that both technical report (state of the art) and standardisation input will be generated from this work item
II. Generalised Enterprise Reference Model
Assessment and report on the technical content of this work is to develop a generalised enterprise reference model, covering all types and forms of enterprises (that is, global and virtual enterprises among others). As can be expected the reference model will concentrate of the management and control side of the enterprise, including the human, technical and business process elements. This effort will be lead by Peter Bernus. By the next meeting (December 1999) the work item will be technically flashed out to the detail such that it can be reasonably expected that this effort of the Task Force will lead to a successful outcome.
There are several reference models in the field which are either competing or their overlaps and possible joint usage is not well understood. Therefore the work must assess the state of the art and who the key players are in the area, and involve them in the effort. This will also determine the exact role of the Task Force in this development. It is expected that the biggest impact could be made in three ways: a) showing how existing reference models relate to one another and thereby identifying their strengths and weaknesses, as well as showing how they can be combined, etc. b) determining how business design on the highest management level can be achieved through using reference model building blocks and their combination rules, protocols, in a plug and play / component based fashion, and developing requirements for inter-enterprise management transactions (including but not limited to electronic commerce transactions).
It is expected that both technical report (state of the art) and standardisation input will be generated from this work item.
GERAM, and liaisons to other bodies
It remains the responsibility of the Task Force as a whole to demonstrate the use of GERAM and of the particular architectures that are complete according to the GERAM requirements, to position new architectures and proposals as they come aboard. However, this will not be done in a project-like manner with deadlines and pre-defined milestones and deliverables, unlike items I and II.
(Note, that in addition, as a natural consequence of items I and II, languages and tools, as well as partial models of importance, would be mapped in the GERAM space anyway, further demonstrating the usefulness of the concepts developed sofar.)
The Task Force as a whole will maintain / establish close liaison with
As a result Task Force work will be contributed as early as reasonable to the international standards development by these bodies.
Immediate input is needed for the Systems and Software Life Cycle development by ISO IEC JTC1 SC7, and to the road-map of ISO TC184 SC5 WG1.
16. Chairmanship / leadership of mandate items
With the two items I and II having clear responsibility members decided that the chair of the Task Force remain in office for a further triennium as well as Prof Theodore J. Williams's proposal to ask Prof Francois Vernadat to replace him as TF vice-chair, which was also accepted.
This is an fitting occasion to give Ted Williams our warmest thanks for his leadership and tremendous effort to have lead the Task Force for six years and to have served as a vice-chair for another three years. We expect that Ted will continue to contribute with equal enthusiasm to the next three year’s efforts, and also hope that we can enjoy his company at our future meetings.
The chair announced that while he intends to lead the Task Force for the next three year mandate, he has the intention to pass on the leadership in the Task Force and in the IFAC TC after that time.
Based on the 3 July outgoing TB and CC meeting’s proposal the 10 July incoming IFAC Technical Board (new chair prof Isermann), and the Coordinating Committee MIM, new chair Prof Ollero) approved the continuation of the IFIP-IFAC Task Force on IFAC's behalf, and its (IFAC arm TC MIA), with no change in the chair, and noted the new vice-chair.
17. Next meeting
The Task Force decided that while individual work items need a person to co-ordinate and drive the development of the respective deliverable, and membership will *not* be split - every member of the Task Force contributes potentially to all deliverables with corresponding voting rights and right to express opinion.
To acknowledge this right and give members the option to exercise it, it has been decided that there will not be separate meetings organised for each work item. Task Force meetings will put on the agenda any and all of the work items defined at the time.
Our next meeting will be held in Paris, 16-17 December immediately after the ISO TC184/SC5/WG1 meeting (which runs 13-15 December). Details (hotel, venue) will be announced on the mailing list.
18. The meeting was adjourned at 16:00
I wish to thank all members for their valuable contribution, time, energy, and patience during the difficult discussions, and wish a successful new triennium.
Beijing, 10 July 1999
Peter Bernus
chair IFIP/IFAC Task Force (IFAC TC MIA)
References
In addition to those documents which were already available (as of 5 July) on the TF website
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/index.html
> The third mandate > ‘current discussion’ the following documents were distributed at this meeting
Hardcopy documents (available from the chair on request):
[1] Chen,Y., M.M.Tseng, J.Yien (1998) Economic View of CIM Systems Architecture’. Production Planning and Control, 9(3) pp 241-249 [you can request further copies from prof Yuliu Chen cyl-dau@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn]
[2] Chen,Y., M.M.Tseng (1997) ‘A Stair-like CIM Systems Architecture’. IEEE TR Components Packaging and Manuf. Technology Part C 20(2) pp 101-110 [you can request further copies from prof Yuliu Chen cyl-dau@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn]
Documents on the TF web accessible from the web version of these minutes at
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/taskforce/Meetings/Beijing1999/minutes.html
[3] Peter Bernus: Proposed work items for the IFIP-IFAC Task Force (updated 7 July 1999)
[4] Richard Weston: Notes for new mandate (5 July 1999) as sent to the wg5-12-list@cit.gu.edu.au
[5] David Shorter: Points for Task Force meeting (1 July 1999) as sent to the wg5-12-list@cit.gu.edu.au
[6] Francois Vernadat A vision for the task force (8 July)
[7] Peter Bernus Agreed Mandates of the Task Force for 1999-2002 (8 July)
[8] Laszlo Nemes Application experience in the Globeman 21 consortium (5 July)
[9] Prof Yuliu Chen Overview of EI and CIM in China Slides available at http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~bernus/taskforce/Meetings/Beijing1999/chen-yuliu.ppt