Cross-usage of web services and PLIB ontologies to define a B2B exchange process of product catalogues

摘要

Our paper proposes an approach that gathers both ontologies and web services technologies in a Business-to-Business (B2B) products exchange model. It proposes a platform that provides answers to three questions required to build such model. To give answer to the HOW part, a software architecture is developed based on JAVA/J2EE web service technologies, and on the PIP2A9 RosettaNet Business Process (BP) model provided as a choreography of exchanges. To answer to the ON WHAT part, the Parts Library Standardisation Initiative (PLIB) ontology is used as a model of contents in order to describe business elements that are the subject of exchange. It allows reducing semantic ambiguities that may occur when identifying products and their characteristics during exchange. Finally, to seek and to find the required web services, a directory that lists these web services has been developed using the ebXML registry specification. This final part gives the answer to the third part of the question: the WHO part.