A process-oriented service infrastructure for networked enterprises

•We developed methodological guidelines for management of business alliances.•We implemented a platform for interoperability and collaborations.•We developed a lightweight semantic search graph/network of interconnected entities.•We have provided a proof of concept implementation of lightweight semantic search.

The networked enterprise is a short-term partnership of business organizations aimed at sharing the partners' services without restrictions on size or organizational structure. Our approach considers two software solutions developed for supporting the creation and maintenance of such business collaborations in interoperable networks. The first one addresses a business alliance formation based on combining competences, processes and services of several organizations into a single value chain. Our emphasis is mainly on the interoperability and security of the provided services. The second approach focuses on the collaboration between large enterprises with rich IT ecosystems and SMEs with poor or missing IT infrastructure. Interoperable data sharing is supported by light-weight semantics, while standard inter-SME communication is enriched to grant authentication among partners. Alternatives for enabling technologies for service orchestration, process modelling, and event routing are investigated for the solutions. Based on the evaluation results obtained from pilot testing of the system prototypes, we discuss the implications of the technologies on quality indicators such as usability, performance, and business applicability.