Chapter 4: Information Architectures and Implementation

Title: Design of a web service platform for B2B products exchange based on PLIB ontology, RosettaNet PIPs and ebXML Registry

Author(s): Y. Aklouf, G. Pierra, Y. AIT Ameur, H. Drias

Address: Industrial and data processing Scientific Laboratory -LISI- National Engineering School for Mechanics and Aerotechnics – ENSMA- 86960 FUTUROSCOPE Cedex FRANCE Electronics and Computer Science Faculty - Research Laboratory in Artificial Intelligence, LRIA-USTHB LP 32, El ALIA, 16111 Algiers ALGERIA | Industrial and data processing Scientific Laboratory -LISI- National Engineering School for Mechanics and Aerotechnics – ENSMA- 86960 FUTUROSCOPE Cedex FRANCE | Industrial and data processing Scientific Laboratory -LISI- National Engineering School for Mechanics and Aerotechnics – ENSMA- 86960 FUTUROSCOPE Cedex FRANCE | Electronics and Computer Science Faculty - Research Laboratory in Artificial Intelligence, LRIA-USTHB LP 32, El ALIA, 16111 Algiers ALGERIA

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2005 pp. 231 - 248

Abstract/Summary: The professional electronic commerce (Business-to-Business) relates to the computerization of the exchanges between companies and organizations or, in another term, it provides an inter-organization information system which makes it possible to do any type of automatic information exchange excluding any human intervention. In this context, handling data and knowledge information during the exchange process becomes one key issue in current computer technology. Therefore, the design of ontologies, which provide a shared and a common understanding of a domain that can be communicated between partners and application systems, becomes fundamental to support exchange and to understand information. This paper proposes an approach that gathers both ontologies and web services technologies in order to build a B2B products exchange model. When such exchange is planned, it is usually achieved by providing answers to the following three major questions: WHO ?, HOW ?, ON WHAT ? Our paper presents a model providing a mechanism for supporting an exchange between companies. It proposes a platform which provides answers to the three questions cited above. To answer to the HOW part, a software architecture is developed based on JAVA/J2EE Web service technologies, and on the PIPA9 RosettaNet Business Process (BP) model provided as a choreography of exchanges. To answer to the ON WHAT part, the PLIB ontology is used as a model of contents in order to describe the business elements that are the subject of exchange. It allows reducing semantic ambiguities that may occur when identifying products and theirs characteristics during exchange. Finally, to sep and to find the required Web services, a directory which list these Web services has been developed using the ebXML registry specification. This final part gives answer to the third part of the question: the WHO part.

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