Towards an IT-Framework for Digital Enterprise Integration

Globalization has resulted in a dynamic environment which is a combination of uncertainties and unpredictable behaviour of customers, enterprise partners and market conditions. As a consequence, manufacturing enterprises tend to improve the monitoring and control of enterprise value creation processes to achieve flexibility and adaptability. Enterprise integration (EI) can be seen as a prerequisite for realizing a multi-loop control system within and across different enterprise levels. Various standards are available for EI but these standards do not mention how to realize them in terms of technology. Therefore, an IT-framework for digital EI based on different standards and technologies is proposed. This IT-framework describes integration of manufacturing level and enterprise control level, graphical user interface for visualization and control, and process control using workflow management system and rule-based system. Finally, a case study is presented showing the application of the IT-framework for different types of manufacturing.