Oliver Baecker

Integration of SOA-ready networked embedded devices in enterprise systems via a cross-layered web service infrastructure

Today manufacturers require efficient reaction to critical events occurring at the shop floor. Therefore, device-level data needs to be integrated into business processes in a standardized and flexible way to avoid time-consuming media breaks. Current approaches are characterized by a late indication of changes in the production environment and a delayed implementation of changed production plans. As a solution, we propose a web service-based integration of enterprise systems with shop-floor activities, using SOA-ready networked embedded devices. We examine the requirements for the integration and derive an appropriate architecture that tries to close the integration gap. The timely provision of data, the impact of device-level information on business processes, as well as the direct bidirectional communication with device-level services promotes the vision of adaptive manufacturing and leads to reduced production costs.

Real-world Service Interaction with Enterprise Systems in Dynamic Manufacturing Environments

The factory of the future will be heavily based on internet and web technologies. A new generation of devices with embedded hardware and software will feature greatly improved storage, computing, and networking capabilities. This will lead to a system landscape of millions of networked devices that is heterogeneous with respect to functionality but features standard interfaces. This new breed of devices will not only be able to store and report information about themselves and their physical surroundings, but execute more computations and local logic. They will form collaborative peer-to-peer networks and also connect to central systems. By eliminating media breaks, e.g. by replacing manual data entry with a direct connection to devices, this “internet of things” will feature end-to-end connectivity, making the models of the real world, as they exist in business systems, follow reality more precisely and with shorter delay. This will change the way we design, deploy and use services at all layers of the system, be it the device, line, plant, or company level or even between collaborating organizations. This chapter describes an architecture for effective integration of the services from the internet of things with enterprise services. We describe the case of centrally managing a population of devices that are located at different sites, including dynamic discovery of devices and the services they offer, near real-time cross-site interaction, interaction with business processes and distributed system management.

Towards the Real-Time Enterprise: Service-based Integration of Heterogeneous SOA-ready Industrial Devices with Enterprise Applications

Abstract It is expected that millions of embedded devices and machines empowered with Internet technologies will be able to communicate, collaborate and offer their functionality as a service. At the shop floor, this creates new opportunities for more dynamic environments where timely usage of the monitoring information is coupled with control and in full collaboration with enterprise systems. We focus on demonstrating our efforts towards such cross-layer composition for the future service-enabled factory.

Mobile claims assistance

When it comes to vehicle accidents, people are stressed out and overstrained, even if it is just a car body damage and no one is hurt. They often lack adequate and immediate assistance and may worry about the lengthy and paper-based loss report to their insurance carrier. At the same time, it is crucial for insurance companies to receive early and detailed case circumstances in order to decrease costs and assist customers with value-added services. Against this background, we propose the usage of mobile phones in order to assist people in the aftermath of an accident. We present a concept for mobile claims assistance along with a proto-typical implementation that features an asynchronous communication between mobile phones and claims management enterprise systems based on mobile Web Services. Finally, we discuss the user perspective on mobile insurance applications and present data we collected using a combination of focus groups and user surveys.

Supporting a mobile lost and found community

In the era of ubiquitous devices and mobility, we increasingly carry objects of great value (in terms of data, money or emotions). Because of our increased mobility, we are also more inclined to lose these objects. When it comes to finding them again, current lost property offices seem rather inflexible and not fully adapted to our nomad lives. They lack dynamic information, introduce too many intermediates and induce high costs. We support the growth of a community of users able to solve the problem on their own using their mobile phones. We describe our concept and implementation of the idea based on prototypes of mobile phones enhanced with a novel type of RFID (Radio Frequency IDentifiaction) reader, the use of the EPC (Electronic Product Code) standards and the creation of both mobile and server-side software. We finally discuss how it can help making the current system more dynamic and efficient.

Reliable execution of business processes on dynamic networks of service-enabled devices

It is expected that future shop-floors will be populated by thousands of networked embedded devices. Those will not only communicate using IP (as in TCP/IP), but also feature some autonomy, allowing them to collaborate among themselves and with enterprise systems. As they can offer both their mechatronic and higher-level functions as a service and support dynamic deployment of new code, they can execute business logic locally, allowing for new classes of business processes that are executed collaboratively by back-end and embedded systems. While some parts of a process will still be executed in the data centre, the rest will execute directly on embedded devices on the shop-floor. Business Process execution will therefore be more dynamic and context-based.We introduce an approach to manage efficient business process execution over such highly dynamic infrastructures.

Design for business innovation: linking the value chains of logistics service and cargo insurance companies by designing a collaborative service infrastructure

Both, the logistics and insurance companies rely on software intensive systems and IT-infrastructure to run their core business operational In recent years IT-improvements have resulted e.g in better tracking and tracing capabilities for the whole logistics industry Designing an interface in this case between the logistics and insurance value chain further enhances visibility and transparency on transportation Though, the design of a large collaborative service infrastructure is a complex task In this paper, we investigate whether design science supports this The research follows design science guidelines creating a message hub based on sensor telematics technologies, which physically links the two value chains The described IT-artefact enables logistics and insurance companies to improve their respective products and solutions with e.g integrated risk management or active process control This demonstrates how design science projects eventually facilitate real business innovation within networked enterprises.