Towards a Comparative Analysis of Interoperability Assessment Approaches for Collaborative Enterprise Systems

Challenges such as globalization and novel technologies are changes-drivers that require transformation within enterprises and their environments. To handle that, enterprises are progressively collaborating with others and becoming part of a Networked Enterprises (NE). In this collaborative and transdisciplinary context, one of the difficulties faced by companies willing to work together, are the interoperability problems between their systems. In order to avoid these problems and consequently, take corrective actions on time, enterprises need to predict and solve potential problems before they occur. To deal with that, evaluations can be performed to assess interoperability and therefore identify strengths and weaknesses of the considered enterprise systems. Despite, numerous interoperability assessment methods existing in the literature, many of them address only one interoperability aspect. In addition, they can also use different approaches and metrics to perform the interoperability evaluation. Thus, it can be difficult when enterprises have to deal with multiple interoperability aspects within a NE. Hence, the objective of this paper is to propose an analysis of the main relevant evaluation methods regarding interoperability. The proposed analysis is essential and will serve as a first step towards proposing a new approach for assessing enterprise systems interoperability within a NE.