Ontology of enterprise interoperability extended for complex adaptive systems

Abstract

Collaborating business organisations have to face the challenge of being interoperable despite the growing complexity of products and services, and despite the increasing agility requirements. Changes to products and services and to supply network configurations occur frequently and require to maintain interoperability constantly in a dynamic way. Designed to formalize and handle interoperability issues, the Ontology of Enterprise Interoperability lacks means to capture the dynamics of modern business. We propose in this paper an extension based on the Complex Adaptive Systems theory. A use-cases is discussed by applying the ontology within a knowledge life cycle framework.