Closing the Process/Technology Gap FERA: Federated Enterprise Reference Architecture: A Framework for Loosely Coupled Business Process Integration (EX)
7/22/2004
The federated enterprise reference architecture (FERA) presents a set of generic principles for information technology that map a wide variety of collaborative processes built on common, reusable open standards utilizing Web services. It derives from multi-company process management for the design and supply chains, although its principles cover the entire spectrum of internal collaboration, outsourcing, and supply chain setups. CPDA research indicates that loosely coupled collaboration provides the most flexible and optimum alternative to the overwhelming complexity of the supply chain interactions in design, manufacturing, and order fulfillment. Web services provide an effective means for implementing the vision, but design and engineering need a set of common principles to apply new technology to their immediate collaboration needs and challenges. Applying pattern-mining techniques, CPDA research has identified four typical collaborative patterns covering PLM and supply chain processes with seven basic components to support the entire spectrum of processes.
Keywords: Federated enterprise, integration, Web services, collaboration, supply chain, PLM, BPM, architecture, process modeling, process patterns, gateway, portal, agent based framework, event management