exploitation of semantic web technology in erp systems amin andjomshoaa, shuaib karim ferial...

Exploitation of Semantic Web Technology in ERP

SystemsAmin Andjomshoaa, Shuaib Karim

Ferial Shayeganfar, A Min Tjoa(andjomshoaa, skarim, ferial, amin@ifs.tuwien.ac.at)

Institute of Software Technology & Interactive Systemshttp://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/

Vienna University of Technology

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 2

Outline

• Motivations• Introduction

– Integration of ERP & PIM– Sharing business processes– Business security

• Proposed Solutions• Conclusion

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 3

Motivations

• At present detailed capture of activities is possible LEADING TO possible integration with ERP systems

• Semantics generated from various sources and / or specified with business processes LEADING TO semantic services interoperability for open industry interaction using SOA

• Security requirements for open industry interaction

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 4

ERP System

Development Environment

Information System, Reports

C R M

S C M

MobileService

. . . . . .

HumanResources

FinanceControlling

MaterialManagement

ProductionPlanning

……

E-Commerce

CIM

Workflow

I N

T E

R N

E T

I N

T E

R N

E T

Sales

Maintenance

QualityManagement

Project

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 5

ERP scenario example: The Procurement Cycle

Determine source of supplyDetermine source of supply2

Vendor selectionVendor selection3

Order processingOrder processing4Order monitoringOrder monitoring5

Determinerequirements

Determinerequirements

1

Goods receiptGoods receipt6

Invoice verificationInvoice verification7

PaymentPayment8

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 6

ERP System (implementation) 1/2• relies on large datasets and their interrelations• Influenced by contextual parameters like country-specific

regulations• User has to make critical decisions about business objects &

methods

CONSEQUENTLY the user should master the disparate domains of expertise such as:– Currently used software– Customer order tracking– Managing the interdependencies of complex BOM and product

structure– Supply chain and interaction with suppliers

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 7

ERP System (implementation) 2/2• The domain knowledge may be captured in:

– Object specifications– Requirements and regulations– ERP software features

<<using ontologies>>

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 8

ERP System-current situation 1/4• Different persons working on different

modules• Belong to different professional domains• Follow a predefined project schedule• Heterogeneity of information sources• Have to work together for common goal

<<customer satisfaction>>

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 9

ERP System-related issues 2/4

• Usage of different terminology with in different business domains

• Existence of different perspective of the same entity

• The predefined schedule often violated for good reasons

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 10

ERP System-Consequences 3/4

• Integration problems between the ERP modules

• Integration problems in inter-organization processes

• Significant training required for working with ERP

• Much of user’s invested time is not tracked

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 11

Precise information capture 4/4

ERP

?

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 12

Proposed solution – what to do?

• Capture (trace) the detailed user activities• Specify the semantics of ERP modules

explicitly• Provide mapping between semantics of

different ERP modules• Share processes that makes sense with

other business partners

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 13

Proposed solution – how to do?

• Use ontologies for specifying and sharing the semantics (semantic web technology)

• Capture as much data about user activities as possible in terms of domain ontology

• The Web Services should be profiled in semantic way (using SOA)

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 14

Precise information capture

• Possible in our prototype with the help of:– Data acquisition– Manual annotations– Automatic associations

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 15

SemanticLIFE Prototype

Google Explorer Plug-in

Repository Plug-in

PersonalRepositor

y Ontologies

Message Bus Plug-in

Pipeline Plug-in

Pipelines Style sheets

User ProfilePlug-in

AnnotationPlug-in

Web ServicePlug-in

Other data feeds

AnalysisPlug-in

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 16

Typical activities are:– Browsed web pages– Emails– Chat sessions– Local processes– Telephone logs– Appointments– Documents– File system monitor

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 17

Use of Ontology Based PIMS

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 18

Semantic web technology 1/4

• Semantic Web is a web of data• enables the machines to comprehend the

data• changes the already existing information to

knowledge sources usable and process-able by machines

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 19

Semantic web technology 2/4

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 20

Semantic web technology 3/4

• RDF (Resource Description Framework) triples for specifying assertions – Subject, Predicate, Object

• The resources have unique identifiers URIs• RDFS / OWL to specify semantics• Apply reasoners (Racer, Pellet) to make

inference

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 21

Semantic web technology 4/4„John is working on task abc and xyz. Task abc is for project TFT production“

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 22

Sample Project Ontology

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 23

Sharing Business Processes 1/2

• Processes/services not limited to an organization• Integration & process automation are two of the

most important issues facing organizations today• Web service standards are good but cover only

web service syntax and not service semantics

<<Consequently, no automatic service composition is possible>>

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 24

Sharing Business Processes 2/2

• Using Semantic Web, the service profiles can be captured in terms of:– Meaning of parameters– Business objects– Internal sub-processes– Intent of operations

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 25

Business Security 1/2

• Growing need for enforcing the complex security policies due to opening the organization’s applications domain to outside world

• Security requirements of a typical business:– Task level security which needs the access

security model– Process level security which requires a

business security model

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 26

Business Security 2/2

• The access security and business security models are partly overlapping

• Semantic Web paradigm may address the complexity of overlapping models in two steps:– Step 1: organization structure may be

captured in an ontology model– Step 2: the business processes and activities

will be captured and added to the domain ontology

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 27

Conclusion

• The semantic integration of Personal Information Management (PIM) systems could be regarded as a first step toward the modernization of ERP applications

• Applications of Semantic Web technologies can make a significant difference in terms of companies productivity and increase of revenue

• In future SOA and Semantic Web integration will play an important role in business processes

• Semantic Web can also be used as a mean for capturing and applying business security requirements