Ontological framework for the enterprise from a process perspective. Operational, tactical and strategic integration for improved decision-making

Abstract

Enterprises are highly complex systems in which one or more organizations share a definite mission, goals and objectives to offer a productor service. Thus, enterprises comprise several functions which interact with each other, such as production, marketing, sales, human resources or logistics. As a result, decision-makingin the enterprise becomes a highly challenging task, and such decision process is usually separated in several levels. Nevertheless, such levels are closely related, since they share data and information. Therefore, effective integration among the different hierarchical levels, by means of tools improving information sharing and communication, may play a crucial role for the enhanced enterprise operation, and consequently for fulfilling the enterprise’s goals. In order to achieve integration among the different decision levels, it is necessary to establish a common modelling framework. In this work, an ontological framework is built as the mechanism for information and knowledge models sharing for multiple applications. The potential of the general semantic framework developed (model maintenance, usability and re-usability) is demonstrated in the enterprise supply chain network design-planning problem case study presented. Further work is under way to unveil the full potential to implement a large-scale semantic web approach to support business processes decisions.