1. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 1 Interoperability and standardisation activites at ENEA XLab First Interop-VLAB.it Workshop Cagliari, Septemebr 12th, 2008 Piero De Sabbata, ENEA piero.desabbata@bologna.enea.it

2. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 2 Summary –ENEA XLAB –Vision on Interoperability for Networked Enterprises –Activities on Standards and Interoperability –Our interests and objectives

3. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 3 About ENEA X-Lab XLAB was created in 2001 after 15 years of experience in industrial districts and technology transfers with SMEs. It is a joint laboratory of ENEA and FTI (www.forumti.it), in Bologna It is a branch of SIC-UDAPMI supporting projects for the territories The approach: -problem driven, -creation of sectorial public understanding/resources (close collaboration with industry associations and standardisation bodies) -participation to european, national, regional research or innovation projects -we do not develop solutions, we help their development (we do not compete with software houses)

4. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 4 The problems we tackle Our target: Clusters of SME manufacturers and their SW suppliers Clusters without a leader or a leading ASP service Criticalities: High threshold to begin the eBusiness ‘game’ Difficulty in setting up/understanding collaboration processes Long time of network setting up and testing Costly scaling

5. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 5 The T/C supply chain – role of SMEs SMEs add high specialisation and productive flexibility to the whole system Relationships in the supply chain involving SMEs: –network pattern (not hub-spoke: many customers, many suppliers) –fabric suppliers and subcontractors (often) have higher specific know- how than the assigners –Increasing subcontracting (“terzismo”) and delocalisation of activities (EU or extra EU) Flow of data hampered by the the inter-company interfaces Traditional local clusterisation (Industrial districts) is going virtual Absence of oligopoly (nobody can impose a solution) R.M. Yarns Fabrics Clothing Trade org. Accessories Q.Check Subcontractors Feed-back

6. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 6 The activities 1.Technology transfer projects and demonstrators on the territory –Demonstration and awareness creation on the territory about interoperability technologies; target: software houses (Centro CROSS-lab). –Support to designing center of services at cluster and district level (Trame e DDTA Puglia) –Traditional and eLearning courses in collaboration with eLearn platform (A. Moreno) on interoperability tecnologies (DEPUIS) 2.Creation, adoption and customisation of interoperability standards –Promotion/participation to build horizontal or sectorial B2B specifications or to their localisation/customisation (chairmanship of CEN/ISSS TexWeave and TexSpin, Moda-ML and eBIZ-TCF; collaboration with OASIS on ebXML and UBL) –Awareness creation on B2B standard (collaborations with Euratex and CEN/ISSS on TexWeave, with OASIS on UBL) –European roadmapping on eBusiness standards (CEN/ISSS eBiz, eBIF; Enterprise Interoperability Roadmap; European technology platform for Future Textile Clothing) –Participation to OASIS TC on Semantic eBusiness Document interoperability (prof Dogac) 3.Research on Enterprise Interoperability –Semantic based tools to support new standardisation paradigms –ICT support for establishing extended smart organisations and supply networks Collaboration processes modeling and profile/agreement management Self-adapting interfaces for data exchange

7. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 7 Some running projects Leapfrog-IP (Leadership for European Apparel Production From Research along Original Guidelines) research project, leaded by Euratex, www.leapfrog-eu.org - defines a KEI (Knowledge Exchange Infrastructure) based on MODA- ML/Texweave specifications and ebXML CPPA. CROSS (regional Innovation Center for interoperability and networked enterprises), www.cross-lab.it (it will become LISEA laboratory) - creation of awareness (and prototypes) on interoperability standards and technologies; addresses local SW Houses and enterprise clusters. Moda-ML permanent initiative leaded by ENEA for Textile and Clothing interoperability, www.moda-ml.org - XML documents and support to European standardisation (CEN/ISSS TexSpin and TexWeave) eBIZ-TCF, a project of DG Enterprise managed by European industry trading organisations Euratex, CEC and by ENEA; www.ebiz-tcf.eu; - an architecture for B2Bharminisation for Textile, Clothing and Footwear; refers to sectorial standards and produces a sectorial UBL profile

8. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 8 Summary –ENEA XLAB –Vision on Interoperability for Networked Enterprises –Activities on Standards and Interoperability –Our interests and objectives

9. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 9 Need for collaborative frameworks Plurality of actors and suppliers, no leaders, no killer applications Sectorial approach reduces gaps and helps SMEs and small technology providers ISP Trade whatever the solutions and suppliers, they must speak together! Critical mass and consensus Local/sectorial communities open to a global market Need for a common reference

10. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 10 ebXML to define collaboration frameworks Before With ebXML Implementation guides Technical documentation Technical documentation Meeting Paper (a lot) and natural language Documents structured as XML, machine-readable, Less human intervention Implementation guides (light) Process modeling XML Company profiles & agreements XML Document Schemas XML Ontologies XML

11. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 11 A collaborative FW based on ebXML Meta standard (ebXML) Framework ontology/Global view Sectorial/community framework (schema, freeware,..) Comp. Profile Operation (MSH) Self adaptive Workflow mng. Data integration (wrappers) Company A Company B information Profiles, agreements Company ontology Any other Standard specifications and dictionary

12. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 12 Comparison of the two approaches Standardised Framework EDI/XML based –Formalised agreement on processes, data formats, transport protocols –Improved flexibility in standard creation, maintenance and consensus building thanks to sectorial approach and ‘document factory’ tools –Dictionary is a well known metaphor Difficulty: integration between standard repres. and legacy systems; cumbersome standard life cycle; ‘customisations’ break the standard. Ontology and agents approach –Sectorial ontologies and automatic tools ease the formal representation of the legacy systems (see project Sewasie, www.SEWASIE.org) –Ontologies drive the (semi)automatic mapping and the data flow among different data representations and sources Difficulty: necessity to create mappings from specialised company ontologies for each couple of partners (lacking a generally accepted reference ontology)

13. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 13 Summary –ENEA XLAB –Vision on Interoperability for Networked Enterprises –Activities on Standards and Interoperability –Our interests and objectives

14. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 14 Main Running activities on B2B Standards and interoperability 1.Activities on UBL (Universal Business Language): close co- operation with OASIS UBL TC in localization, development and customisation procedures for UBL 2.Collaboration with Textile Clothing industry (EURATEX) in setting up a reference architecture and set of specifications for eBusiness (Moda-ML, TexSpin, TexWeave, eBIZ-TCF) 3.Semantic based tools to improve methodologies of standard creation/maintenance/adoption (experience of Onto_moda, Leapfrog IP integrated research project)

15. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 15 1. Activities on UBL and with OASIS Italian Localisation of UBL (UBL ITLSC) Supporting UBL adoption in Italy for public procurement and invoicing (collaboration with CNEL-national council for economy and labour, participation to CEN/WSBII) Promoting UBL towards Italian software houses and industrial sectors (CROSS center: Tiles, Foundry,..) Use of UBL use profile fot European Textile and clothing industry (eBIZ-TCF project) Ontology based tools to support UBL adoption/customisation Participation to “OASIS Semantic Support for Electronic Business Document Interoperability (SET) Technical Committee“

16. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 16 2. The ‘document factory’ of Moda-ML/TexWeave DICTIONARY Modelling and analysis Families of XML documents with shared and reusable elements Categorised Views (Object, Representation, Property Term) For Maintenance, comparison and mapping with other framework SCHEMA GUIDEUser MSH, Parser Browser, MSH XSL Structure (syntax) Representation (format) Mark up (semantic) Multilanguage Process (model) Classification XML XMI and SVG representation for UML diagrams ebBP An environment to speed-up standard creation/maintenance with more than 500 elements to build 54 document templates Data for CPPA based tools

17. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 17 3. A sectorial ontology and semantic based tools The LEAPFROG IP project TexWeave/Moda-ML Dictionary: a standardised dictionary of business terms upon which it was based the TexWeave standardisation specifications. OntoMODA, a sectorial OWL ontology composed of two sub-ontologies: Static Ontology (SO), Dynamic Ontology (DO) that is closely linked to Moda-ML. Annotated XML Schemas and Type Libraries: this is a library of XS type and a set of XS document annotated with the concepts defined in OntoMODA that is the key for design and maintenance of standardised data formats. Ontology Explorer: an on-line tool for domain experts (not ontology experts) for maintenance of dictionary and XML templates, design of new interfaces of web services between components dealing with T/C entities (i.e.: fabrics, garments, their features and behaviour); it was born for Onto-Moda, and successfully tested on UBL (for the OASIS UBL TC). CP-NET (Collaboration Protocol – Networking Enterprises Technology) a set of public on-line applications that enables enterprises, that want to cooperate through an ebXML based collaborative framework, to design their business collaborations (ebXML CPPA).

18. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 18 A sectorial ontology and semantic based tools/2 ONTO-MODA A modular sectorial ontology to support data exchange in the T/C sector Strictly linked with the Moda-ML and CEN/ISSS Texweave dictionaries in order to have a standardised root of the concepts (outcome of Leapfrog Integrated Project) Ontology Explorer: an on-line tool for domain experts (not ontology experts) –dictionary and XML template maintenance –supporting future standardisation initiatives –design new interfaces of web services between components dealing with T/C entities (i.e.: fabrics, garments, their features and behaviour) –Born for Onto-Moda, tested on UBL (for OASIS UBL TC)

19. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 19 Ontology Explorer browsing the UBL Ontology

20. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 20 XLAB set of ebXML tools ebBP-Generator is a stand-alone application to generate Business Processes descriptions through ebXML Business Process (ebBP v2.0.4). CPP-Editor is a web application to create/edit ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile (CPP v3.0). The goal of CPP-Editor is to provide to each user a way to create a business profile CPP to describe the own capability into a collaboration framework. CPA-MatchMaker is a web application to create ebXML Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA v3.0) from two ebXML Collaboration Profiles (CPP). The goal of CPA-MatchMaker is to provide to each couple of users a way to achieve a CPA Agreement, when possible, and to resolve ambiguous situations, starting from two CPP Profiles. CPA-FastEditor is a web application to create/edit ebXML Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA v3.0). The goal of CPA-FastEditor is to provide the users with a simplified way to create a business agreement CPA and to obtain a simple and fast MSH configuration without using CPPs. MSH is a Message Service Handler software implementation. It allows a single endpoint to send and to receive ebXML messages (ebMS v3.0) into the e- business context in a very simplified way (intercafe through CPAs and XML files).

21. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 21 XLAB set of ebXML tools/2 Dictionary ebBP CPP Profiles CPA Agreement MSH (ebMS) UML, XML Schema,... ebBP Generator CPP Editor CPA MatchMaker CPA FastEditor MODA-ML Leapfrog-IP, TRAMECROSS other generators Developed in the Framework of…

22. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 22 Summary –ENEA XLAB –Vision on Interoperability for Networked Enterprises –Activities on Standards and Interoperability –Our interests and objectives

23. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 23 New standardisation methods for data exchange interfaces and related impact to build an ISU basic framework (focused on SME communities but not only) Collaborative process modelling and automatically supported convergence and related standards (proposal of ebXML enrichment); Semantic based tools to support in customisation of standardised data models and processes Our present interests

24. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 24 Definition of a methodology to create shared data models that are ‘standard aware’ Setting up of tools to speed-up the process of standardisation of data models within communities of enterprises/industrial sectors Expected long period output/results

25. ENEA – First Interop-VLAB.it workshop, Cagliari, September 12, 2008 - 25 Thanks for your attention! Some references to our work: Interoperability for textile and clothing industry: www.moda-ml.org www.texweave.org www.ebiz-tcf.eu (managed by Euratex) www.leapfrog-eu.org (managed by Euratex) UBL adoption in Italy: www.ubl-italia.org Iinteroperability and industry (regional): www.cross-lab.it Contact: Piero De Sabbata piero.desabbata@bologna.enea.it