In: IEEE 6th Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE'97), 18-20 June 1997, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. 1997. Presented, but not published.
Abstract: The development of the necessary information infrasturcture required to support the rapid establishment of business partnerships for the life time of a project is seen to be an important activity by many countries. Consortia established for the life time of a project are know as virtual enterprises. This paper discusses some of the work being undertaken in two International Standards subcommittees, and shows how they are relevant to the development of the infrastructure required for virtual enterprises. The first area is that of Open Distributed Processing (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG7) and particularly the use of Traders to locate potential business partners and the resources required within the consortium to undertake the project. The second area is that of techniques to specify and design systems (and business processes) and formats for their interchange between design groups, being undertaken in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG11. It is seen that the WG11 standards will facilitate distributed design teams.
Keywords: virtual enterprises; international standards; traders; high-level petri nets; modelling; information infrastructure; distributed design.