Exploitation of Semantic Web Technology in ERP

SystemsAmin Andjomshoaa, Shuaib Karim

Ferial Shayeganfar, A Min Tjoa(andjomshoaa, skarim, ferial, amin@ifs.tuwien.ac.at)

Institute of Software Technology & Interactive Systemshttp://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/

Vienna University of Technology

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 2

Outline

• Motivations• Introduction

– Integration of ERP & PIM– Sharing business processes– Business security

• Proposed Solutions• Conclusion

25.4.2006 CONFENIS 2006 3

Motivations

• At present detailed capture of activities is possible LEADING TO possible integration with ERP systems

• Semantics generated from various sources and / or specified with business processes LEADING TO semantic services interoperability for open industry interaction using SOA

• Security requirements for open industry interaction

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ERP System

Development Environment

Information System, Reports

C R M

S C M

MobileService

. . . . . .

HumanResources

FinanceControlling

MaterialManagement

ProductionPlanning

……

E-Commerce

CIM

Workflow

I N

T E

R N

E T

I N

T E

R N

E T

Sales

Maintenance

QualityManagement

Project

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ERP scenario example: The Procurement Cycle

Determine source of supplyDetermine source of supply2

Vendor selectionVendor selection3

Order processingOrder processing4Order monitoringOrder monitoring5

Determinerequirements

Determinerequirements

1

Goods receiptGoods receipt6

Invoice verificationInvoice verification7

PaymentPayment8

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ERP System (implementation) 1/2• relies on large datasets and their interrelations• Influenced by contextual parameters like country-specific

regulations• User has to make critical decisions about business objects &

methods

CONSEQUENTLY the user should master the disparate domains of expertise such as:– Currently used software– Customer order tracking– Managing the interdependencies of complex BOM and product

structure– Supply chain and interaction with suppliers

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ERP System (implementation) 2/2• The domain knowledge may be captured in:

– Object specifications– Requirements and regulations– ERP software features

<<using ontologies>>

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ERP System-current situation 1/4• Different persons working on different

modules• Belong to different professional domains• Follow a predefined project schedule• Heterogeneity of information sources• Have to work together for common goal

<<customer satisfaction>>

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ERP System-related issues 2/4

• Usage of different terminology with in different business domains

• Existence of different perspective of the same entity

• The predefined schedule often violated for good reasons

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ERP System-Consequences 3/4

• Integration problems between the ERP modules

• Integration problems in inter-organization processes

• Significant training required for working with ERP

• Much of user’s invested time is not tracked

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Precise information capture 4/4

ERP

?

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Proposed solution – what to do?

• Capture (trace) the detailed user activities• Specify the semantics of ERP modules

explicitly• Provide mapping between semantics of

different ERP modules• Share processes that makes sense with

other business partners

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Proposed solution – how to do?

• Use ontologies for specifying and sharing the semantics (semantic web technology)

• Capture as much data about user activities as possible in terms of domain ontology

• The Web Services should be profiled in semantic way (using SOA)

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Precise information capture

• Possible in our prototype with the help of:– Data acquisition– Manual annotations– Automatic associations

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SemanticLIFE Prototype

Google Explorer Plug-in

Repository Plug-in

PersonalRepositor

y Ontologies

Message Bus Plug-in

Pipeline Plug-in

Pipelines Style sheets

User ProfilePlug-in

AnnotationPlug-in

Web ServicePlug-in

Other data feeds

AnalysisPlug-in

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Typical activities are:– Browsed web pages– Emails– Chat sessions– Local processes– Telephone logs– Appointments– Documents– File system monitor

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Use of Ontology Based PIMS

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Semantic web technology 1/4

• Semantic Web is a web of data• enables the machines to comprehend the

data• changes the already existing information to

knowledge sources usable and process-able by machines

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Semantic web technology 2/4

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Semantic web technology 3/4

• RDF (Resource Description Framework) triples for specifying assertions – Subject, Predicate, Object

• The resources have unique identifiers URIs• RDFS / OWL to specify semantics• Apply reasoners (Racer, Pellet) to make

inference

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Semantic web technology 4/4„John is working on task abc and xyz. Task abc is for project TFT production“

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Sample Project Ontology

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Sharing Business Processes 1/2

• Processes/services not limited to an organization• Integration & process automation are two of the

most important issues facing organizations today• Web service standards are good but cover only

web service syntax and not service semantics

<<Consequently, no automatic service composition is possible>>

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Sharing Business Processes 2/2

• Using Semantic Web, the service profiles can be captured in terms of:– Meaning of parameters– Business objects– Internal sub-processes– Intent of operations

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Business Security 1/2

• Growing need for enforcing the complex security policies due to opening the organization’s applications domain to outside world

• Security requirements of a typical business:– Task level security which needs the access

security model– Process level security which requires a

business security model

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Business Security 2/2

• The access security and business security models are partly overlapping

• Semantic Web paradigm may address the complexity of overlapping models in two steps:– Step 1: organization structure may be

captured in an ontology model– Step 2: the business processes and activities

will be captured and added to the domain ontology

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Conclusion

• The semantic integration of Personal Information Management (PIM) systems could be regarded as a first step toward the modernization of ERP applications

• Applications of Semantic Web technologies can make a significant difference in terms of companies productivity and increase of revenue

• In future SOA and Semantic Web integration will play an important role in business processes

• Semantic Web can also be used as a mean for capturing and applying business security requirements