Towards a systemic formalisation of interoperability

Interoperability has been mainly approached from an IT point of view or enterprise collaboration perspective. This paper aims at contributing to develop a science base for interoperability by studying interoperability on the basis of the system theory. The main contribution is to propose a formalisation of interoperability grounded in the general system theory: the Ontology of Interoperability (OoI). OoI provides a meta-model for ontological descriptions of systems, problems and solutions, which can then be inferred for a computer-aided interoperability diagnosis and problem solving. Related concepts definitions as well as a systemic model and a decisional model are given and discussed. Based on the Framework for Enterprise Interoperability (CEN/ISO 11354), the specialisation of the OoI to the enterprise domain is discussed. A case example is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.