Taking the most of MDA and SOA to challenge SMEs in the advent of a Single European Information Space

Abstract

Today’s global market environments reveals an increasing need for collaboration and interoperability among organizations in a more demanding and competitive industrial scenario. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) combined with the use of reference conceptual standards can be a very powerful tool to improve enterprise efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation. However, some of these organizations, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), have been experiencing some problems when trying to adopt one of the most important standards for the exchange of product data, the STEP (ISO 10303). These problems are due to the poor software support and usage of complex technologies. This paper presents as a solution for the presented problems and needs, a framework based on open-standards for the reuse and harmonization of STEP conceptual models and knowledge with other standard technologies commonly adopted by today’s organizations. It follows a Model Driven Architecture to transform STEP conceptual models in other technologies easier to use by organizations, and exploits the potentialities of web to put the framework available on-line through a Service Oriented Architecture. In this sense, the knowledge contained in STEP standards can be transposed to complementary modelling and implementation technologies and put available worldwide, which can ease and reduce the costs related to interoperability. The results presented in this paper have been supported and validated in industrial scenarios in the scope of three European research projects, i.e., ATHENA IP, INTEROP NoE and VIVACE IP.