Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

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 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers in Industry
jo ur n al ho m epag e: ww w.els evier .c om /lo cat e/co mp in d
Product whole life-cycle and omni-channels data convergence
oriented enterprise networks integration in a sensing environment
Qing Li*, Hao Luo, Pei-Xuan Xie, Xiao-Qian Feng, Rui-Yang Du
Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

ARTICLEINFO AB S T RACT

Article history: With the process of globalisation and the development of management models and information
Received 2 May 2014 technologies, enterprise cooperation and collaboration meets a new business and technical
Received in revised form 29 January 2015
environment. The Internet of things, mobile Internet, cloud computing and big data technologies build
Accepted 30 January 2015
Available online 14 March 2015 a sensing environment for all kinds of businesses. Inter enterprise collaboration is also meeting the new
challenges of omni-channel marketing, closed-loop supply chain and enterprise networks integration. A
data convergence oriented enterprise networks integration architecture with relative enabling
Keywords:
Enterprise network technologies is developed in the paper. In order to collect, transfer and fuse data from different data
Data convergence sources, Data Portal (DP) and Collaboration Agent (CA) concepts are introduced, which present a
Product lifecycle management lightweight and loosely coupled infrastructure for enterprise networks integration. How to use the
Omni-channel marketing developed technologies to solve problems of product lifecycle management and omni-channel
marketing management are discussed in detailed cases studies.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
With the process of globalisation and the development of
management models and information technologies, enterprise
collaboration and cooperation is facing new business requirements
in a sensing environment.
Cloud computing, big data, service oriented architecture, as
well as IT outsourcing models, are changing infrastructures and
relative IT implementation strategies of enterprises. The integrated
IT environment is broken and more and more outside cloud
services are selected and combined with inside information
systems. Data storage and processing models are changing.
Enterprises and relative enterprise networks have to reconstruct
their infrastructures.
Continuously increasing customer and public policy require-
ments is raising the demand of whole lifecycle services and the
monitoring capability of an enterprise. At the same time, new
business models such as e-business and big data based businesses
are leading to data and processes fusion among networked
Fourth,thenewconcepts“CollaborationAgent”and“DataPortal”areintroducedintosystemintegrationaswell
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13 651270901; fax: +86 10
62770351. E-mail addresses: liqing@tsinghua.edu.cn,
liqing.thu@gmail.com (Q. Li).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compin d
0 1 5 . 0 1 . 0 1 1
0166-3615/0 2015ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved.
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enterprises. However, because of organizational boundaries, data
and processes are broken into fragments; therefore, how to make
decisions with limited local data, how to trace a business problem,
how to provide whole lifecycle services, how to control multiple
channels of a product, and how to realise the whole enterprise
network optimisation become the key issues of every enterprise.
In order to overcome challenges faced by enterprises in a new
developing sensing environment, the Enterprise Network Integra-
tion Platform (ENI-P) with Data Portal (DP) and Collaboration
Agent (CA) is introduced in this article. The rest of this article is
organised as follows. First, the challenges faced by enterprises are
discussed in detail. Second, the development of enterprise
networks integration is reviewed, as well as information technol-
ogies including the Internet of things, the semantic web, cloud
computing, and big data technology. Third, the architecture of the
Enterprise Network Integration Platform (ENI-P) is developed for
the data oriented product lifecycle management and omni-channel
marketing management challenges of enterprise networks [6].
astheirrealisation
methods. Lastly, ENI-P is developed, and an industrial experiment
system is deployed to illustrate the usage of developed technolo -
gies in the paper.
24 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
 Marketing Policy

Development of
All-channel marketing Internet Technology
Development of mobile Internet,
Internet of Things, cloud computing
and big data technologies

E-commerce

Services
Outsourcing convergence
Retail and direct sales Intra and inter and enterprise
enterprise enterprise Supply chain networks
integration integration management integration
Scope of
Integration
Design
Manufacturing
Sales
Maintenance and support
Recycling and disposal
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 7
Product Lifecycle
Fig. 1. Environment of enterprise network integration with business and technology development.
 2. Challenges faced by enterprises in a sensing environment
2.1. New trends of enterprise integration in a sensing environment
The new developing trends of enterprise operation are shown in
Fig. 1, including three directions:
(1) The scope of enterprise integration is extending. Enterprises
cooperation and collaboration have covered four stages: intra-
enterprise integration, inter enterprise integration, supply chain
management, and enterprise network integration [1]. Currently,
companies with similar businesses merge together, purchase
semi-manufactured goods from multiple up-stream supply
chains, and supply to multiple downstream supply chains. The
topology of supply chains has become a complex network with
multiple starting points, multiple ending points, and numerous
routines from start to finish. At the same time, the topology of
supply chain networks has become more dynamic. Partner
companies join and quit the network dynamically. Snapshots of
the network change frequently.
(2) The product lifecycle management, especially the closed-
loop supply chain management for product recycling and
disposal becomes a more and more important business issue.
Closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) concern the integration of
used and obsolete products back into the supply chain as
valuable resources [2,3]. CLSC is a key topic for sustainable
development of the economy and environment protection.
CLSCs are different from traditional supply chains. They
embrace all the activities in the life cycle of a product—from
the design through manufacturing to the end-of-life (EOL)
treatment of a product. The EOL treatment of a product includes
the collection and return of the product to its manufacturing
origins for possible dismantling, reusing, re-manufacturing or
recycling of the product components after its useful life.
Therefore, unlike the traditional supply chains, where the
material flow is unidirectional towards the customer, CLSCs
must encompass systems and methods for the collection and
return flow of the used products.
(3) The market policies are developed from retail and e-
commerce to the omni-channel marketing. Through the mobile
Internet, customers can finish product searching, comparing,
ordering and paying anywhere, at anytime and through any
method. The space and time boundaries between enterprises
and customers
are broken. How to manage information flow and material flow
is the key issue. In a sensing environment, real time data fusion
from different channels shall support customer service and
business decisions.
2.2. Challenges of enterprise network integration
Big data with data fragmentation is the main characteristic of
current enterprise network management. In a sensing environ -
ment, more and more data are collected, stored and treated, which
form plenty of big data sets. Due to business division and
outsourcing, from design, manufacturing, to sales, a complete
business process is divided into a set of business process fragments
by different enterprises’ organisational boundaries, as well as the
related business data sets. Every partner enterprise only operates
and controls parts of these data fragments, which causes decisions
being made and management being based on limited local data. If
enterprise networks have no superior companies, the key issues of
enterprise networks integration are as follows:
(1) Information, material, and value chains are broken by
organisational boundaries. With the process of outsourcing,
organisational boundaries break the whole system of informa-
tion collection and operating and sharing chain into fragments,
as well as the material management chain and value
management chain. To protect business secrets and profits,
every company along its supply chain network only has
fractional data with which to make decisions.
(2) Heterogeneous system integration of different enterprises can
encounter great challenges. How to form a collaborative
information system across heterogeneous infrastructures
rapidly and dynamically determines whether the enterprise
network can succeed. Every enterprise in the network has a
complex integrated intra-information system (IS) to support its
businesses operations. Adjustment and integration of these
systems can lead to chaos.
(3) Partner companies have to satisfy different integrating
requirements of their partner companies. A powerful and
flexible infrastructure shall be developed to integrate member
enterprises’ information systems for business data fusion.
(4) Business data sharing and protection in enterprise networks is
a serious issue. In enterprise networks, the data management
process in the product data management (PDM) of an enterprise
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
is broken into different PDM systems, and data protection logic
and mechanisms are subverted. New methods shall be devel-
oped to support data sharing as well as protection.
2.3. Challenges of product lifecycle and closed-loop supply chain
management
Closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) concern the integration of
used and obsolete products back into the supply chain as valuable
resources [2,3]. CLSC is a key issue for sustainable development of
the economy and environment protection. The main challenges
faced by CLSCs are listed as follows:
(1) How to collect and share information about the usage
of products is the key issue of CLSC design, development and
operation. Because there is a huge quantity of products related
to information created and consumed by different entities in
the closed-loop, the methods and technologies considered to
represent, organise and control the information, which will
improve the accuracy, integrity and consistency as well as
reduce cost and privacy offence of the information throughout
the whole loop, are very important and fundamental to the
successful operation of CLSCs.
(2) Consumer electronics products recycling is a hot topic in
CLSC research and engineering fields. Consumer electronics
have a wide distribution, significantly large quantities, relatively
low residual values and high treatment costs. Since the essential
characteristics of EOL consumer electronics are significantly
unique, the communications and information storage and
sharing systems cannot emulate the systems developed for
vehicle CLSC—as this would result in unbearable costs and
infinitesimal utilisation ratios. Therefore, consumer electronics’
companies would need to develop a suitable framework to
overcome the challenge.
2.4. Challenges of omni-channel marketing
Omni-channel marketing [4] means that enterprises integrate
all available marketing channels and sell goods to their customers
through as many channels as possible. Omni-channel marketing
assumes that customers will get information about products and
make evaluations at different points and interact with producers or
retailers through several different channels along a complex
purchase process [5]. From the perspective of enterprise integra-
tion, the main challenges faced by omni-channel marketing are
described as follows:
(1) Heterogeneous data fusion of different channels is the key
issue of omni-channel marketing. The diversification and
complexity of marketing channels diversify data sources. For
each channel, there exist corresponding data sources such as
mobile phones, tablets, or websites. Furthermore, types of data
tend to have a semi-structured or unstructured nature, which
increases heterogeneity of data and makes data fusion more
difficult.
(2) Under omni-channel marketing, the amount of products
and customers data is increasing explosively. This trend leads to the
existence of much redundant information, which raises the
demand for data cleaning. At the same time, large amounts of
data for decision-making are scattered over enterprises along
supply chain networks. To effectively utilise information, these
data should be adequately shared with relevant enterprises
9
along supply chain networks.
3. Review of business and technical environments faced by
enterprise networks
The rapid development of advanced technologies such as cloud
computing and big data, together with the emergence of new
business models, bring new demands of enterprise collaboration
and cooperation. These demands are producing great influence on
infrastructures and relative implementation strategies of enter -
prise information systems. Enterprise network integration needs
to solve the problem of data fragmentation and to meet customer
demands of whole life cycle services and Omni-channel marketing.
These above environments faced by enterprise networks, as well as
relevant sensing technologies and infrastructures, are reviewed in
the following sections.
3.1. Enterprise networks
Based on its functions, an enterprise network combines the
related enterprises’ outputs to provide products or services to the
global market. Its structure is tightly or loosely coupled, and self-
organised. Partners in the network generally operate in the
following ways: independently through market mechanisms,
cooperatively through agreements or contracts, or simply through
sell-buy activities.
Enterprise networks were first defined by Mercer as networks
that integrate and distribute resources within a corporation
[59]. After that, Martin-Flatin, Simon and Jean-Pierre classified
enterprise networks into centralised and distributed types
according to their paradigms [7]. In the past, centralised paradigms
received great success while distributed ones suffered from data
and process fragments. Besides, as the environment kept changing
faster than ever, Thoben and Jagdev pointed out that cooperation
with an enterprise network would be too complex to implement a
quick response [60]. Further research work was deployed upon this
topic, most of which focused on finding a certain mechanism to
reduce the uncertainty under limited costs.
In recent decades, as shown in Fig. 2, companies with similar
businesses have merged together, purchased semi-manufactured
goods from multiple up-stream supply chains, and supplied to
multiple downstream supply chains. These companies have a high
competency and capacity in certain domains; therefore they can
serve in multiple supply chains.
Enterprise networks have evolved from point-to-point type
supply chains to many-to-many networks, which made the system
more complex than ever. On one hand, partners’ behaviour within
networks has changed from time to time, which is more difficult to
observe or predict [8]; on the other hand, organisational
boundaries obstruct relevant enterprises from controlling the
entire production process across the whole supply chain.
Recently, enterprises were recommended to apply ICT (Infor-
mation Communication Technology) so as to achieve efficient
communication and collaboration within enterprise networks.
Though ICT was considered essential to the integration in
enterprise networks management, some researchers have argued
that increased information sharing could make information
systems another source of instability [9–13]. Still, a consensus
was reached by most researchers that the primary task of
managing the supply chains among enterprise networks should
be resolving the integration of IT systems.
3.2. Closed-loop supply chains
Another recent research direction in supply chain management
is the integration of used or obsolete products back into the supply
chain. Chains that employ this method are known as closed-loop
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 11

26 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Fig. 2. Enterprise network and multiple supply chains network.

supply chains (CLSCs) [2,3]. CLSCs are considered to be an effective
way to recover the value of external end-of-life (EOL), returned
products or components [14]. Relevant legislations and polices
have been enacted in most regions around the world, which
generally require producers (especially those original equipment
manufacturers) to take the responsibility in environment effects
throughout the entire product life cycle [15–17]. As a consequence,
many enterprises have to emphasise on reuse of disposed product
and implement CLSCs’ activities. Though the process can be
difficult, therein lie potential benefits such as the “green” brand
effect and the facilitating of the product take-back process.
Closed-loop supply chains related topics are also gaining
popularity recently. Different from the traditional forward-flow
of products to customers, CLSCs are concerned about all the
activities from design to EOL operation in a life cycle, which orders
the acquisition and return flows of products to be considered.
However, the reduction of consumer, uncertainty in the quality,
quantity and timing of returned products remains to be a challenge
[18,19]. Lack of control and information about the return flows was
the main cause of these challenges to a great extent. Traditionally
the information flow ended after the delivery of the products to the
customers, and little information can be reflected to designers or
producers from customers [20].
The problem stated above is likely to be solved by using newly
developed information communication technology (ICT), especially
wireless technologies such as radio frequency identification
(RFID). With sensors embedded in products and mobile Internet,
the information that facilitates the decision-making activities in
CLSCs can be traceable.
Methods and technologies that have applied to represent,
organise and control the information are also of great importance
to the success of CLSCs, for the quantity of information throughout
the life cycles of products can be expected to be huge. Only with
proper accuracy, integrity and consistency can the information
recorded and transported be actually useful. Therefore, the
practical methods to collect and transfer data and information
among CLSCs have been a popular research topic. European experts
have developed a framework for CLSCs for the auto industry
[21,22]. Product data management (PDM) and product lifecycle
management (PLM) systems have been successfully implemented
in large scale products industries, for their life cycles have been
rigorously controlled and managed, and their CLSCs’ management
has been formed from mature architectures and techniques.
In general, the whole product life cycle can be divided into three
phases: the beginning of life (BOL) phase (e.g. product design and
product production, etc.), middle of life (MOL) phases (e.g. product
after-sell service, maintenance, and others) and end of life (EOL)
phase (e.g. product reuse, remanufacturing, recycling and dispos -
al). The correlation between the CLSC and the product life cycle
develops more closely, especially when it comes to the EOL phase.
Fig. 3 illustrates the corresponding relationship between a CLSC
and the different phases in a whole product life cycle.
The central part in Fig. 3 describes the tracking-related entities
and activities in a CLSC, which consist of two directions: the
forward direction and the backward one. The forward supply chain
shows the process of how products were produced from raw
materials and delivered to customers’ hands: raw material
providers produce required materials and provide them to parts
providers, who are responsible for the design and production of
parts and transporting them to downstream OEM or producers.
After design, planning, scheduling, manufacturing, and all other
necessary steps, products are produced and transported to
distributors to be put into markets for customers to purchase.
However, after the products become customers’ property, several
situations may occur:
(1) The product may have some quality problems, and it will be
returned (the customers will find the seller or the producer on
their own initiative);
(2) the product may need maintenance or repair after some
usage (similar to the first situation); and
(3) the product may come to the end of its life (EOL) (far from
the first two).
As shown in Fig. 3, the reverse supply chain is expected to take
care of the three kinds of products above: returned, needed for
maintenance and EOL products. It is to be observed that some
components may need frequent replacement or repairmen though
the whole product has a rather long life cycle. In that case, more
than one reverse supply chain could be needed for a single kind of
product.
3.3. Omni-channel marketing
Omni-channel marketing [4] is a marketing model in which
enterprises sell goods or provide services to customers through as
many channels as possible. Omni-channel marketing assumes that
customers can get product information and make evaluations at
different points and interact with producers or retailers through
multiple channels in the purchasing process. An enterprise with
omni-channel marketing seamlessly integrates all their retailing
channels to satisfy customers’ needs [23,24].
Kotler defined a marketing channel as the path through which
products are transferred from producer to customer [25]. Possible
marketing channels include direct-selling, physical store, website,
call centre, email, or social media. Burdin [26] summarised omni-
channel marketing as the final step of the evolution from single
channel, multi-channel to omni-channel. In the age of single
channel marketing, an enterprise uses a single channel, which is
usually a brick-and-mortar store, to market goods to consumers.
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 13

Fig. 3. Closed-loop supply chain [20].

Intention Search Selection Buy Use

Payment Pickup Leave

Fig. 4. Traditional trading model.

With the development of e-commerce, multi-channel marketing call centres, are used at different stages of a purchasing process.
has displaced single channel marketing and has become a Li [4] pointed out that the information technology revolution
mainstream strategy employed by enterprises. Multi-channel provides the impetus for omni-channel marketing. The develop-
marketing means that enterprises sell goods by using several ment of information technology, especially the mobile Internet and
different channels and each complete purchase process of the Internet of Things, expands the channel of information
consumers involves only one channel. However, this strategy dissemination, which is the core activity of the purchasing process.
neglects consumers’ increasingly changing preference for channels The generation of each new technology brings a new channel for
when they are in the process of shopping [5]. With this trend, marketing, enabling customers to perform omni-channel shop -
enterprises are implementing omni-channel marketing, combin ing ping.
and integrating several channels, to meet customers’ require ments.
Different from multi-channel marketing, omni-channel marketing
makes it possible for customers to interact with enterprises
across all available channels when purchasing goods.
Omni-channel marketing is a new marketing policy to cater to
customers’ demand for omni-channel shopping. A simple but
typical example of omni-channel shopping is a behaviour known
as “showroom”, which is described as “shoppers who scope out
merchandise in stores but buy on rivals’ websites, usually at a
lower price” by Zimmerman [27]. As shown in Fig. 4, a traditional
purchasing process model includes the following activities:
producing a buying motive, searching for relevant information,
selecting retailers and products, making decisions to buy, and
receiving after-sales services [4]. In a traditional single channel or
multi-channel marketing policy, customers carry out the above
five activities through a single channel. However, customers
expect to perform the activities using different channels, thus
requiring enterprises to employ an omni-channel marketing
policy. Fig. 5 shows a scenario of omni-channel shopping,
corresponding to omni-channel marketing. To complete the
purchase, several different marketing channels, which include
the web, cell phones, tablets, social networks, physical stores, and
Fig. 5. A scenario of omni-channel marketing.

Order Continue
Web Search and pay shopping

View order
Cell Receive status
Phone e-mail

Pad View Write a

Comments review

Social Discuss
Chat Posting
network with friends

Store Check
and try

Call For more

Query
center information
15Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
3.4. Sensing technologies
Currently, sensing technologies are making a sensing environ-
ment for all companies and businesses. To be specific, wireless
technologies, the Internet of Things, the mobile Internet, cloud
computing and big data technologies are especially popular and
widespread.
RFID is one of those wireless techniques that are becoming basic
elements in people’s daily lives. Such techniques have been widely
researched and applied in industry practices [28,29]. They broke
the physical barricades between different parts of cycles or chains,
and could accelerate the operating speed of enterprise networks.
Other wireless techniques, such as Bluetooth, global positioning
system (GPS), and wireless sensor networks (WSN) have also been
widely used in solving problems that occurred in supply chain
management.
The techniques discussed above have been proven to be good
carriers for information of products in space dynamic states. A real-
time view of locations and states of products can be delivered to
manufacturers, distributors or retailers, and production planning
and shop floor control progress can be improved [30–34]. RFID also
helped with the traceability issues within the management of
reverse logistics and CLSCs processes [35]. Information stored by
RFID can be read, collected and transferred to the information
centre of CLSCs for further analysis. Necessary networks shall be
designed and implemented to connect entities in different
domains together.
Internet of Things [36] is an emerging concept that concerns
object identification, communication, collaboration and control. In
Internet of Things, objects, such as household appliances, will form
a network. This forming of networks is technically feasible if RFID
tags are planted into all objects of daily life, which will identify
them and manage them by computers instead of humans
[28,29,36]. Actual efforts have been taken to realise Internet of
Things using RFID technologies [37–40]. Other research on
standardised protocols may also help with the implementation
of Internet of Things, such as IPv6 [41], which has a vastly larger
space than IPv4. In that case, any kinds of objects can be identified
instantaneously.
Being defined as wireless access to the Internet via mobile
devices, the mobile Internet makes it possible for users to get
online services anytime and anywhere [42]. According to KPCB,
about 200 million Facebook users are mobile users, which occupy
40% of all users, and 40% of twitter news comes from mobile
terminals [43]. Morgan Stanley pointed out that nowadays
computing cycle is early innings of mobile Internet cycle, which
evolved from mainframe computing, mini computing, personal
computing, and desktop Internet computing [44].
The explosive growth of data resources brought by the
techniques introduced above or related to them has made big
data the most popular issue in the world in recent years. Though
without an authorised definition, big data can be described as “a
collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes
difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or
traditional data processing applications” [45]. Additionally, most
researchers agree on the three key characteristics of big data,
which are also known as the 3V’s: volume, variety and velocity
[46].
Various techniques are required to make big data valuable, such
as high-speed networking, cluster compute programming, file
systems, cloud computing, and data analysis techniques [47]. To
face the new challenges brought by big data, explorations and
research have been done. For instance, Apache began the
programme of Hadoop in 2005. By combining GFS, MapReduce
and Big Table developed by Google, it is now the most popular
system in classifying the keywords searched on the internet
[48]. NoSQL(Not only SQL) is also another mature application of big
data, which stores data in the form of “key-value pairs”, so as to
fulfil the demands in simplicity of design, high rate of parallel I/O
and better extendibility [49]. Other techniques like membase, and
MongoDb also have been developed.
3.5. Loosely coupled infrastructure
SOA is a new Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) infra-
structure that encapsulates and releases business functions of
application systems in the form of services. In that case, the
relationship between services users and services providers reflects
themselves only as a service description defined by standard
document formats, and separate services interfaces from services
themselves [50–52].
Based on the concepts of SOA, Web services were defined as
software applications that can be described and accessed through
XML or standard Web protocols [61]. To combine simple Web
services to create complex, sequence-driven tasks, the process
named “Service orchestration” involves creating logic to main the
communications between multiple Web services. Links are created
between applications or workflows to multiple Web services to
keep their communications continuing.
SOA can benefit from the development of cloud computing. As
an internet-based computing, it shares resources, software and
information among computers or other devices if demanded.
Moreover, newly emerging IT services could be of great help, such
as SaaS, PaaS (platform-as-a-service) and IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-
service). According to Rittinghouse and Linthicum, more technol-
ogies can be distinguished from clouds, such as communication as-
a-service, monitoring-as-a-service, storage-as-a-service, database-
as-a-service, information-as-a-service, process-as-a-service,
application-as-a-service, integration-as-a-service, security-as-a-
service, management/governance-as-a-service, and testing-as-a-
service [53,54].
The development of SOA and cloud computing provides us with
more flexible and changeable integration skills, which makes it
possible to form a loosely coupled infrastructure for enterprise
networks integration.
The technologies and research achievements reviewed above
show the fact that a new technical and business environment is
being formed that surrounds enterprise operations and new
demands are being generated. It is a new context for the
integration work of enterprise networks. To meet the integration
requirements of whole life cycle management and Omni-channel
marketing under a sensing environment, a loose-coupled platform
architecture and relative business collaboration mechanism shall
be developed. With this architecture and mechanism, intra-ISs of
companies can communicate with each other, form basic
collaboration networks, collect data from sensors belonging to
partner companies in networks, and envelop relative functions as
web services to achieve collaborative operations. To resolve the
above issues in a sensing environment, a data convergence
oriented enterprise network framework is proposed in this paper.
At the same time, a case on enterprise network integration for
product whole life cycle and Omni-channels data convergence is
introduced.
4. Data convergence oriented enterprise networks integration
framework
An enterprise network is built and operated based on integrated
ISs, which can help to link business processes and local information
systems one by one. Based on the understanding of business
demands of enterprise networks, an integration framework or
16Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
solution for the integration among intra ISs of member companies
in a sensing environment must meet the following criteria:
(1) Member companies’ ISs should be accessible through
the framework. There shall include a mechanism to publish
selected functions of intra ISs as services that can be accessed
by a company’s partners.
(2) A certain mechanism should be built up to support the
intercommunication between the framework and different
intra ISs.
(3) The member companies’ IS services should be organised
to support the enterprise’s business processes and the processes
should be accessible through the framework.
(4) The member companies’ IS services, business processes
and others applications should be well-managed and under
monitoring. They should be dynamically enabled or disabled.
(5) Users should be free of multiple logins, which means
the framework will automatically deal with the service
authorisation.
(6) Through the framework, the sensors or data sources should
be accessed and controlled in parallel by different authorised
applications in member companies.
(7) The structure and operation logic of the framework shall
be simple. It shall be realised as a light-weight platform.
In order to satisfy the above criteria, as shown in Fig. 6, the
scheme of an enterprise networks integration framework based on
collaboration agents (CAs) and data portals (DPs) is developed.
In Fig. 6, a segment of an enterprise network framework is
depicted. Collaboration agents (CAs) are a core component in this
framework to realise loosely coupled inter-enterprises integration.
CAs are implemented in every member enterprise. These CAs serve
as media for interconnection between intra-ISs and outside
systems. The CAs can connect applications on intra ISs and access
each other via different APIs. The CAs can also complete
encapsulation of intra ISs as web services; therefore, a network
connecting all intra ISs in member enterprises is structured. The
loosely coupled mechanisms of CAs also provide a way that can be
quickly adjusted to follow the changes of a business environment.
In order to collect and transfer data in a sensing environment,
Data Porters (DPs) are developed. DPs present a mechanism to
collect data from different sensors or data sources, collate original
data, and encapsulate and transfer data to targets. DPs realise
virtualization of heterogeneous sensors or data sources. With
standard functions defined in DPs, different application users can
control these sensors without considering their specifications.
Based on the integration framework, The Enterprise Network
Integrating Platform (ENI-P) between a company’s intra ISs and its
partner companies’ IS services in a sensing environment with CAs
and DPs is developed. A CA is in charge of communication between
outside services and intra enterprise ISs. A DP is the media of
communication between the outside environment and relative
enterprise networks. The platform also realises single logins to
intra enterprise ISs and outside ISs.
An Enterprise Network Integration Platform (ENI-P) is devel-
oped in [6,55–57]. The SOA-based framework of ENI-P is proposed
in Fig. 7. The platform contains nine major functions, namely
runtime environment, execution component, collaboration agents,
collaboration agent management, data portals, data portals
management, user interface, business integration tools and
business operation tools.
(1) Runtime environment only contains an ESB for data
exchange and routing.
(2) Collaboration agents (CAs) realise the concept of cross-
enterprises processes integration. A detailed technical discus-
sion can be found in Refs. [6,55–57].
(3) Data portals (DPs) realise functions of collecting,
encapsulating and transferring data from the sensing
environment. DPs are special atom web services deployed in
the platform.
(4) Business execution components are platform operation com-
ponents, including application execution, security control, and
operating database for the company to store business data
temporarily.
17Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Fig. 6. Scheme of collaboration agent (CA) based enterprise network integration.

18Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

User Interface Portal User Access Management Business Integration Tools

Web Editor
Collaboration Agent Management Data Portal Management
Process Modelling and
Mapping Editor
Collaboration Agents (CAs) Data Portals (DPs)
Encapsulation Editor
CA A CA C DP A DP B DP C DP M
CA B CA N
. . .
. . .

Business Operation Tools

Execution Component
Business Data Integrator
Application Execution Operating Database Security
Contracts / Licenses
Management
Runtime Environment
Enterprise Service Bus Business Logic Services

Fig. 7. Components of ENI-P.

19Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
(5) Collaboration agent management and data portal
management manage all CAs and DPs on the platform. They
allow the platform administrator to introduce new CAs
and DPs, maintain their status and eliminate unnecessary ones.
Particularly, data portal management contains a global data
destination system that takes charge of data transfer between DPs
and corresponding target CAs.
(6) The platform provides a B/S-based portal as the user
interface. User access management provides role-based
authorisations of invoking different outside services, business
flow and other applications.
Business integration tools are kits for application development,
which include an encapsulation editor, process modelling and
mapping editor and web editor.
(1) The encapsulation editor is a tool for web service
encapsulation. The editor provides an API library of various
invocation interfaces, which allows developers to encapsulate
partners’ ISs APIs into web services.
(2) The process modelling and mapping editor offers
developers tools for process editing. The editor aims at process
modelling at three levels, including business process modelling,
operation logic modelling and service orchestration. The
editor also provides an orchestration pattern library with
various flow patterns to ensure complex functions completion.
The detailed
process modelling and mapping method can be found in Refs.
[6,55–58].
(0) The Web Editor aims to offer an IDE for a developer to build
up web pages for application invocation.
As shown in Fig. 7, ENI-P presents three sets of business
operation tools.
(1) The business data integrator includes a database
management system with a set of pre-defined web services.
These web services present a standardised function to publish,
exchange, synchronise, access, collect, and operate data with
partner companies for business purposes. The business data
integrator realises the functions of data matching and data
fusion.
(2) Contracts/licences management manages business
information (contracts, cooperation agreement, etc.) among
member companies of an enterprise network. It is the
foundational information of services accessing.
(3) Business logic services are pre-defined web services for inter-
enterprise cooperation. This paper focuses on omni-channel
marketing and closed-loop product management. Therefore,
enterprise network integration for omni-channel marketing and
closed-loop product management are discussed as examples.
Based on the framework of ENI-P, the operation mechanism is
set up as shown in Fig. 8. Intra-IS APIs and outside APIs are
20Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Fig. 8. Communication between collaboration agents.

 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 21

Data Portal Y Data Portal X

Platform Portal Platform Portal
Platform Platform
Management Data Management
destination
Service Service Service Service Service Service
Encapsulation Orchestration Management
System
Encapsulation Orchestration Management

Atom Services S A A S A A Atom Services

Platform Data Base Platform Data Base

ESB Server ESB Server

Collaboration Agent in Company X Collaboration Agent in Company Y

Platform Portal Platform Portal
Platform Platform
Management Management
SAA SAA
Service Service Service Service Service Service
Encapsulation Orchestration Management Encapsulation Orchestration Management

Atom Services SAA SAA Atom Services

Internet___

Platform Data Base Platform Data Base

ESB Server ESB Server

Fig. 9. Architecture of collaboration agent and data portal.

22Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
encapsulated into API services. The process service in CAs calls the
needed API services to complete operation logic and store
necessary outside data in local operation databases. Thus, CAs
realise automatic information exchange between intra-ISs and
outside systems.
In addition to simple API access and web-service invoking,
complex operating logics are important to complete a series of
operations and maintain the integrity of business logics. Cross-
computing environment access is one of these operations. All the
operations could be encapsulated as web services. Based on the
APIs’ library of cross-computing environments, the function of a CA
could be realised through service encapsulation of APIs, service
development and service orchestration.
The SOA-based software structure and operation logics of ENI-P
are shown in Fig. 9. The features of every node on the platform are
detailed as follows:
(1) Every partner node (including CAs deployed in
member companies of an enterprise network and DPs deployed
at data collecting points) has a seven-layer architecture,
enterprise service bus (ESB) server, platform database, atom
services, platform applications, platform management and
platform portal.
(2) Atom services are deployed on local ESBs and registered in
the platform database.
(3) Four types of platform applications are contained on ENI-
P, namely service management, service encapsulation, service
orchestration, and service access agent. Service management
takes charge of services registration and service information
access. Service encapsulation provides wizards for web service
encapsulation. Service orchestration provides graphical inter-
faces for business process orchestration and alignment
between process and relative atom services.
(4) The service access agent (SAA) module ensures security
of cross-domains interoperation. SAA utilises the Kerberos
technique to realise service access control and protection.
Every service call and response shall go through a relative SAA.
The SAA gets information about service access (service URL,
server IP, user name, password, access methods and so forth)
from the platform database and then realises the service call
and response [6].
(5) ENI-P has two kinds of deployments: collaboration
agents (CAs) and data portals (DPs) with relative functional
atom services. They are of the same system structure. Both of
them include an ESB, a platform database, platform tools and
SAAs. Functional web services integrated in them are different.
CAs focus on communication and integrating logic between
intra ISs and partner companies’ ISs. DPs focus on data
collection from a sensing environment and transfer collected
data to target companies. Because DPs are not connected to
outside CAs directly, in order to realise data routing, DPs will
access a global Data Destination System to get information
about the target of data and transfer relative data to the
target.
A detailed discussion on CAs and DPs will be presented in
Sections 5 and 6.
5. Collaboration agent (CA)
The Collaboration agent (CA) is the key component of ENI-P. CAs
are media for connection, intercommunication and interoperation
between intra-ISs and partners’ ISs. Intra-enterprise ISs will get
and share data and functions with their partners’ ISs through their
CAs. At the same time, the CA deployed in one company will
communicate with CAs deployed in its partner companies so as to
form combined ISs networks. CAs will also converge data from
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
their related data portals for sensor data sharing among ISs
networks. Generally, in every company there is only one CA for
enterprise network integration. A giant conglomerate with
independent subsidiaries can also implement a typical tree style
CA architecture for group management of data exchange. Two
major techniques are included in a CA: service encapsulation of API
(application programming interface), and service orchestration of
CA. Supporting technologies such as service access control and data
transferring methods are also essential for CAs [6].
An application programming interface is a set of predefined
programming instructions and standards to provide interfaces for
software interaction. APIs in collaboration agents, stored in the
platform API library, present interfaces to access applications in
intra-ISs and intra-DPs, and to communicate with partners’ CAs. In
a CA, there are three kinds of APIs:
(1) Intra-IS APIs. To interoperate with intra-ISs, intra-IS APIs
are needed. The main vendors of different Intra-ISs provide
these APIs for systems integration.
(2) CAs’ public APIs. These APIs realise communication and
service accessing between CAs that are located in related but
different companies.
(3) DPs’ APIs. These APIs realise communication between CAs
and related DPs.
According to the concept of SOA, service encapsulation of the
defined API is the next process, which aims to encapsulate APIs into
web services. Two steps are involved in service encapsulation of
APIs: local function Java code development and function code
encapsulation. The Java code should follow the Java Native
Interface (JNI) standard and realise request-response communica-
tion with the API on the user side. The encapsulation module
supports function code encapsulation by providing guides for
parameters and functional Java code settings. With a template
defined in Ref. [6], the module will automatically generate a web
service Java code.
As enterprise applications are complex and diversiform, several
web services need to be organised to complete the communication
goals of CAs. In ENI-P, developers can realise this function with the
help of a BPEL-based service orchestration module. This module
offers a graphic user interface (GUI) to developers to draw the web
service process (operation model) or map from service process
models and form a complete operation process in the collaboration
agent. Then the CA is able to complete the communication and
interoperation between intra-ISs and outside CAs.
A detailed discussion on API encapsulation, service orchestration
and deployment can be found in Refs. [6,55–57].
In order to assure security of information interaction, the
identity authentication, service access control and service data
protection are essential functions of ENI-P. Service access agents
(SAAs) is a key technology to realise secure service access. The
structure and mechanism of the SAA is shown in Fig. 10.
Two companies A and B’s intercommunication is used to
present how SAA works. As shown in Fig. 10, the SAA of each
company is composed of Module_I and Module_O, and connects to
each other and a related intra-web service. The detailed descrip -
tion of the structure of the SAA is as follows:
(1) SAA_A, SAA_B: the SAAs are deployed in both company A
and B. They are in charge of all the atom and process web
services existing in each company. That means any request or
response of service invocation will pass through the corre -
sponding SAA.
(2) Module_I: Module_I is the input port of SAA. It can input
and transfer the requests to services that are deployed in this SAA’s
23
company.
(3) Module_O: Module_O is the output port of SAA. It can output
the response of services that are deployed in this SAA’s
company.
(4) service_A1 service_An: They are atom or process web services
. . .
deployed in company A.
(5) service_B1 service_Bm: They are atom web services
. . .
deployed in company B.
Moreover, as shown in Fig. 10, SAAs in CAs and DPs are different.
SAAs in CAs can communicate with each other directly. Because of
the cooperative relationship between the two partner companies,
the cooperative relationship is stored in the CAs’ local platform
database. It is not necessary to install a global service access
management system. Based on point-to-point connection, CAs link
partner companies to an enterprise network. SAAs in DPs involve a
global data destination system. DPs get the identification of data
collected from the sensing environment and request the address of
the data transfer destination from the data destination system.
Suppose that service_Ak is going to invoke service_Bl (actually,
service_Bl can also invoke service_A k); service_Ak should initiate
the request to SAA_A with the authentication information of
service_Bl. After receiving this message, SAA_A will search for the
registered information of service_Bl in its database and forward the
message to service_Bl’s SAA, SAA_B. SAA_B then takes charge of the
process and checks whether service_A k is authorised to invoke
service_Bl. If service_Ak is, then SAA_B would approve the invoking
of service_B l and complete the operation afterwards.
However, if service_B l is an atom service encapsulated from a
data portal, more processes are involved. After SAA_B approves the
invoking of service_Bl, the SAA of the related DP (named as SAA_ B l)
will take over the process and access the data destination system to
get the address of Service_ A k. Thus, SAA_ Bl could communicate
with SAA_ A and complete the above data transfer operation.
As described above, all multi-domains interoperation of
web services in the ENI-P architecture pass through the SAA.
Any service_A k should invoke outside services through
SAA_A. Similarly, any service_B l could only accept a request
forwarded by SAA_B. Under this architecture design, the
security problems of the interoperation between web services
from different domains transform into that of interoperation
between different SAAs.
6. Data portal (DP)
An ENI-P basically requires a medium to play the role of
gathering information from heterogeneous data sources in sensing
environments. A data portal (DP) is qualified to fulfil such a
requirement. A DP is capable of identifying and standardising data
collected from different data sources such as RFID readers, tablets,
websites, or mobile phones and related information encapsulation,
and it is now well developed. However, to gather the data collected
by a data portal remains a problem. The current idea mainly
focuses on building a particular network for the communication
between portals and the central database that has an apparent
weakness in cost, efficiency and flexibility. Considering those
problems, a data portal based ENI-P should have three special
features, which are necessary to realise a practical framework:
(1) The architecture of the system should be loosely coupled. It is
not surprising that large amounts of data portals are widely
dispersed. It is quite normal that some of them may be invalid
or out of work sometimes. If the network is tightly coupled, one
node failure may cause the failure of other related portals or
even extend to the failure of the whole system. To avoid this,
24Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

data portals should be independent of one another and the network should offer a loosely coupled architecture.
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in
Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 25
service_A service_A
26Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

SAA_
A
Module_O <<call>> Module_I <<call>>

transferData_O Security_O Security_I transferData_I

<<call>> <<call>>

<<call>> <<call>> <<call>> <<call>>

callDataBase callDataBase

SAA for DP
DataDistinationSystem
<<call>>
<<call>> DBMS
SAA_ service_B
Module_I
transferData_I
<<call>> <<call>>
callDataBase
<<call>>
<<call>> Security_I
<<call>> Module_O
Security_O <<call>>
callDataBaseservice_B <<call>> <<call>>
transferData_O
<<call>> <<call>>
Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 27

Fig. 10. Service access through SAA.

28Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
(2) There is no need to maintain a particular real time
communication channel because data is not gathered and
transmitted continually all the time. The optimal way is to
build a temporary channel that is based on the Internet to
reduce cost and enhance efficiency.
(3) Data transmission should be well protected. A
particular network apparently ensures data security while, on
the other hand, costs significantly more than an internet-
based approach. The latter may give a more economical
solution but security problems need to be addressed.
Generally speaking, a loosely coupled architecture with the
temporary secure communication mechanism should be the best
solution for data gathering in an ENI-P. As a result, it is able to
provide all the necessary characteristics to build a data portal
based an ENI-P.
First, DPs could be encapsulated into atom web services
following a standard interface. As a web service is supposed to offer
a loosely coupled invoking system, which means different web
services are called independently and would not affect other web
services, data portals are therefore independent of one another.
Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 29

Fig. 11. Deployment of data portals.

30Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
With all data portals encapsulated into web services, an
orchestrating process may then be developed to collect data
according to the user’s requirements. Considering that the service
developed by orchestration can be orchestrated as an atom web
service by another orchestrating process, an ENI-P could adopt a
multi-level hierarchy, which means at different levels, different
regions of data portals are covered and managed. By controlling
web service access and protecting transmission channels, an ENI-P
is therefore well established.
The DP based information service system is a typical tree style
or star style distributed system as shown in Fig. 11. At the bottom
level are data portals connecting to a CA that could also be a leaf of
another CA. Each data portal connects with several different
sensors and data sources for data identification, standardisation
and encapsulation.
The scheme of DPs is illustrated in Fig. 12. DPs collect data from
different sensors or channels. Then, the DPs identify the collected
data and transfer it to a standard format. Third, collected data is
encapsulated so that it can be transferred by a standard web
service. Fourth, in order to send the data to the right target, the SAA
in the DP will access the Data Destination System and get the data
routing information. Lastly, the SAA in the DP will connect to the
SAA in the target CA and send the data out.
In Fig. 12, sensors and data resources are initial information
sources that provide product information to the system. A DP
contains several sensors or data sources so that all the information
collected in the same DP is considered to be in the same location. In
order to connect collected product information with a specific
location, basic information of sensors should be registered on a
company’s DP management database.
Raw data collected by sensors or data sources is supposed to go
through a series of selections and processes to ensure its content and
format are under a certain criterion. The standardised information is
stored in the data buffer and then transferred to the target IS for
31Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Fig. 12. Scheme of data portal and data encapsulation.

32Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
Raw information

Sensors or data Information

sources sensing

Address book Data selection

Selection Criteria
criteria

Address Standardized information

Information
database
Get Target
Address Address Information package

Data upload Target

Fig. 13. Data flow diagram of operations in DP.

Table 1
Description of DP services.

Data Destination
Index Name Task Operation
System
1 Data_Get Select information collected by sensor under certain criteria and Every time sensors of data sources collect new information, this
put it into an information database in standard format service is automatically invoked
2 Data_Select Select required product information according to the criterion Invoked after Data_Get to automatically select target
and store it into the information database information
3 Data_Address Get data transferring target node’s address based on the Invoked after Data_Select to get data transferring target’s
identification of data address
4 Data_Upload Export information in the database in a file for upload and then Invoked to transfer data to the target
transmit the information file to the specified node
33Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
further operation if required. All these operations are encapsulated
into web services and deployed on the application server of the DP.
The information flow is illustrated in Fig. 13.
Functionally, a DP has three major functions: one is selecting
information under certain criteria and storing it into the
information database under a standard format; the second one
is to get the target address from the data destination system; the
third one is to upload this information from the information
database to the right target. Therefore, four atom web services are
involved in a DP as listed in Table 1.
The first atom service completes information selection from the
sensing environment to the information database. The latter three
atom services realise a data upload process, that is, a process that
could be invoked locally or by target nodes. All four atom services
are registered in the platform database and are under the control of
the platform mechanism. The detailed operating logic is shown in
Table 2.
In addition to web services, DPs also need a database to hold
related information. Storing content consists of three major
segments, namely a selection criterion library, an information
database and an address database. The former aims to hold
information selection criteria. The second is established to store
useful information collected from data sources and owns
attributes shown in Fig. 12. The third is the target address for
relative data.
To be more specific, all the operations stated above are not
complicated because they are simple web services developed in
Java. The required runtime environment components include a
34Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Table 2
Operating logic of DP services.
Data_Select Data_Upload
Information
File

public Boolean Data_Select( Sensor record) public Boolean Data_Upload(sub node location)
{
Search for the native gathering-rule reperto ry ; int i = 1, j = 1;
If (the record dissatisfy the rules){ { Start Data_Export service;
Abnegate the record; while (Data_Export end unsuccessfully) {
Return false; i++;
Restart the Data_Export;
Else{ If (i > 3) return false;
Parse the record into normal format; }
Write the record into native database; Start Data_Transmission service;
Return true; while (Data_ Transmission end unsuccessfully) {
} j++;
} Restart the Data_ Transmission;
If (j > 3) return false;
}
Return true;
}
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
Functions
Views
Data Process
Domains
Fig. 14. Data fusion mechanism of ENI-P.
light-weighted application server (e.g. tomcat) and fundamental
database (e.g. Microsoft Access, MySQL, etc.). This simple structure
could be installed in a common device like a PC due to its low
performance requirement, which would not bring any extra load to
the terminal owner and hence is cost effective.
7. Data organisation and fusion
In order to realise data convergence between intra-ISs of
member companies and outside partners’ ISs, as shown in Fig. 14,
an ENI-P’s data fusion mechanism includes three dimensions:
(1) Domains. In organisation, there are lots of different
management processes and activities to meet business
requirements, including quality management, collaborative
design management, cooperative manufacturing
management, financial management, logistic management,
maintenance management and so forth. When cooperating
with business partners, enterprises should consider the data
fusion method for each business logic and computing process
respectively, thus leading to different cooperation
processes. In this paper, closed-loop product management
and omni-channel marketing management will be discussed in
detail as an example of ENI-P’s implementation.
(2) Views. In the process of data fusion for enterprise network
integration, business process and data fragmentation is the key
issue. Therefore process and data are two important perspec -
tives that should be considered.
(3) Functions. For data fusion in every domain, multiple
functions will be required in an ENI-P, and the minimal set of
functions for inter-enterprise integration is classified as the
core functions. These functions form the basic capabilities of
an ENI-P. Other functions that are extended from the core
functions are defined as extended functions.
As shown in Table 3, to achieve data fusion for enterprise
integration in a sensing environment, core sets of data, services and
processes should be arranged, developed and shared.
Fig. 15 is the core data model of an ENI-P. This model focuses on
product-related data sharing and transferring. The links between
35
Table 3
Candidate list of core sets.
Core sets Candidate list
Data Product, batch, order, supplier, customer, supplier product,
customer product, transaction, sensor, sensor info
Service Data synchronisation
Process Transaction process, data query request, data query response
product information in different ISs construct a bridge that links
other domains’ data, such as product, schedule, cost or quality
management data in different intra-ISs. As shown in Fig. 15, the
supplier’s product management is based on the product batch and
the customer’s product management is based on every individual
product; based on the design, all situations can be covered with
suitable flexibility. In the model, the data-sharing requirement to
direct partners is strengthened.
In this paper, the topic of how to strengthen products’ closed-
loop supply chain management and omni-channel marketing
management across enterprise borders is selected as an example to
illustrate the principle of ENI-P. The following will discuss the
data-processing method.
The basic framework of the enterprise network integration is
based on the development strategy of horizontal integration, in
which product lifecycle and omni-channel management informa-
tion sharing is improved. Instead of global information releasing,
which is not accepted by the integration model for business secrets
protection, every enterprise shares or publishes its products with
relative marketing information to its direct suppliers or customers.
If every company can get their direct suppliers’ products and
marking information as well as publish products and marketing
monitoring information for their partners, the product lifecycle
management and omni-marketing management relationship net-
works covering of the entire enterprise network will be
established, although no one may really know the whole picture.
If one company requests products’ performance information from
its indirect customers, it will forward the request and relative
information to the direct downstream companies. Then the
downstream companies will take over the subsequent data
request process, and forward the request to the target customers.
At the same time, the downstream companies will forward the
information to the upstream companies to share relative data.
Considering the most common scenario, the following rules are
presented to ensure the operation of the technique.
(1) Every company only collects and operates its direct
suppliers’ and customers’ information.
(2) Every company can only see original product information of
its direct partner companies.
(3) For each predefined cooperation target, such as quality
management, if a supplier does not present enough product
information to its direct customers in the network, the system
will present a notice to its downstream companies that
necessary information for management is not complete and
tell which supplier is causing the problem. The downstream
enterprise will contact the enterprise and ask it to join the
information sharing system or to submit the related informa-
tion.
(4) If one supplier has a vital problem that has an important
influence on downstream companies, for example, it is located
in an area with high quality risks, companies whose logistics
chain includes the company will be alerted one by one.
(5) If the supplier information is taken as a trade secret by an
enterprise, the enterprise can keep the secret. Then, its
downstream enterprises will get the notification that the
information is signed as secret.
36Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Supplier_Product

Supplier Supplier_Product_Index PK Suppli er_No_in (FK)

PK Supplier_No_in PK Supplier_No_in (FK) PK Supplier_Product_Index_No_in (FK)

PK Supplier_Product_Batch_No_in (FK)
Supplier_No_out PK Supplier_Product_Index_No_in

Supplier_Name Supplier_Product_Index_No_out PK Supplier_Product_No_in

Supplier_Product_Name Supplier_Product_No_out

Supplier_Sensor_Index_No_in

Supplier_Transaction
Supplier_Product_Batch
PK Supplier_Trans action_No_in
PK Supplier_No_in (FK)
PK Supplier_No_in (FK)

PK Supplier_Product_Index_No_in (FK)
Supplier_Order PK Supplier_Product_Index_No_in (FK)

PK Supplier_Order_No_in (FK) PK Supplier_Product_Batch_No_in

PK Supplier_Order_No_in
Supplier_Product_batch_No_out
PK Supplier_No_in (FK) PK Supplier_Product_Batch_No_in (FK)

Supplier_Order_No_out Supplier_Transaction_No_out Intra_Part_Table

PK Supplier_Product_No_in (FK)
Supplier_Sensor_Index
PK Intra_Product_No_in (FK)

PK Supplier_Sensor_Index_No_in

Supplier_Sensor_Name

Supplier_Sensor_Type Intra_Product_Index Customer_Transaction

PK Intra_Product_Index_No_in PK Customer_Transaction_No_in

PK Customer_No_in (FK)
Intra_Product_Name
Intra_Product
PK Product_Index_No_in (FK)
PK In tr a Produ ct No in
Intra_Product_Batch
Intra Product Bom PK Intra_Product_Batch_No_in (FK)
PK Intra_Product_Index_No_in (FK)
Intra Product No out PK Customer_Order_No_in (FK)
PK Intra_Product_Batch_No_in
Intra_Product_Index_No_in Customer_Transaction_No_out
Intra_Product_batch_No_out

Intra_Product_Batch_No_in Intra_Sensor_Index_No_in

Intra_Sensor_Index_No_in Intra_Sensor_Index
Customer_Order
PK I n t r a S en s o r I nd e x N o i n

PK Customer_Order_No_in
Intra Sensor Name

PK Customer_No_in (FK)
Intra_Sensor_Type
Customer
Customer_Order_No_out
PK Customer_No_in

Customer No out Customer_Sensor _Info

Customer Name PK Cu sto me r_S en so r_ Inf o_No

PK Customer_No_in (FK)

PK CustomerOrderNoin (FK)
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 37
The supply chain or logistics system is essentially horizontally management architecture has the ability to be continuously
integrated, and the relationships among different companies are developed.
dynamic. Based on the released product information, especially the The key concepts of the system are to limitedly release
core data defined in Fig. 15, the entire product and marketing suppliers’ product information, to form a product relationship
38Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
network, to analyse the network based on an information
platform, and to extend management architecture with enough
information.
8. Case studies
The authors developed the ENI-P framework for enterprise
network integration in a sensing environment. The platform is
used to integrate the upstream and downstream enterprise
information systems in supply chains for ordinary usage, such
as ERP integration, E-business platform integration, trade data
integration and so forth. The platform can also be used to integrate
heterogeneous data from multi-sources in a sensing environment.
On one hand, the framework can be used to realise data integration
for whole product lifecycle management; on the other hand, the
omni-channel marketing management can also be highly realised
by integrating data generated from every marketing channel with
the platform. In the authors’ research, a platform for the enterprise
network integration of an Air Purifier supply chain under sensing
environments is designed and implemented to test all technologies
developed in the paper.
Company YT is an air purifier provider in China. An air purifier
consists of a filter, plastic parts and several different electronic
components. Company YT purchases air purifier components from
different suppliers and sells air purifiers to different downstream
companies or directly to end customers via physical stores or
electric commerce. Company YT has seven main kinds of suppliers
classified by the type of their products, which include controllers,
communication components, power supplies, motors, blades,
plastic parts, and components of the filter. There are multiple
suppliers for every part. For the complexity and long manufacturing
process of an air purifier, these seven types of suppliers also have
their upstream suppliers, which provide electrical compo nents.
Company YT sells its product to end users via several different
channels, including its own physical stores and online store, B2C
online trading platforms such as Tmall.com and JD.com, mass-
market retailers such as Carrefour and Wal-Mart, air condition
companies, construction companies and some other business
customers. As a result, company YT has a complex supply chain
network in its upstream relationships and several downstream
business partners, as shown in Fig. 16. The supply chain network is
a typical enterprise network.
On the other hand, the explosive growth of sensing and mobile
Internet technology has made company YT under a sensing
environment where the company can obtain an amount of data
from heterogeneous data sources. Due to this condition, company
YT faces two main challenges:
(1) The sustainable development of information technology
enriches the channels through which customers interact with
the company. Customers tend to be omni-channel shoppers,
which means that customers complete a single purchase
through different channels including physical stores, websites
and so forth. Integrating all the marketing channels including
online and offline channels, labelled as “omni-channel
marketing”, is a critical means for company YT to accommodate
omni-channel shoppers. The integration of heterogeneous data
generated at different stages of the purchasing process is the
key to success in omni-channel marketing.
(2) CLSC is a key issue for cost reduction and environment
protection of company YT. The production of the filter in the air
purifier is the core competence of company YT. CLSC can be
recognised as an effective way to recover the value of external
end-of-life filters and returned products as much as possible.
Sensing technologies give company YT an unprecedented
opportunity to recycle the filter by monitoring for its usage,
providing a filter replacement service when needed. Thus,
integrating information from every customer and realising the
whole product lifecycle management is a key challenge for
company YT.
(3) Since the network shown in Fig. 16 is so complex, it is currently
difficult to implement platforms to cover the entire network. To
verify technologies developed in the paper and solve omni-
channel marketing management and whole product lifecycle
management issues faced by Company YT, an industrial
experimental system is deployed in Company YT and the
typical parts of its partner companies and customers. Cases
about omni-channel marketing management and lifecycle
product management are detailed in Sections 8.1 and 8.2.
8.1. Omni-channel marketing management
Currently, online businesses are booming. More and more
product providers have chosen to set up online shops, which have
largely enriched their marketing channels. Realising the trend of
ever-increasing omni-channel shoppers, Company YT is about to
integrate public e-business services, its own online business
platform and all its physical channels. In fact, many companies of
the same size as Company YT are selling their products through
multi-channels, and this also compels Company YT to compete
39Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Third-part B2C Amazon.cn

Tmall.com

JD.com

Online self-shop

Stores
Company YT
Supermarkets

Air condition companies

Customers
Construction companies

Fig. 16. Supply chain network around Company YT.

Fig. 17. Marketing channels of Company YT.
40Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
with them in this field. As shown in Fig. 17, Company YT has mainly
four types of marketing channels: B2C, including an online self-
shop and third-part B2C platform such as Tmall.com , Amazon.cn,
and JD.com ; Retail, which includes a self-supported shop and
shops in supermarkets like Wal-Mart; Wholesale and B2B,
including downstream business customers such as air condition
companies and construction companies. These channels provide
customers a variety of ways to interact with Company YT,
including online shops, industry estimation websites, relevant
forums, and search engines, and are labelled as omni-channel
marketing. One of the most typical examples of omni-channel
marketing of Company YT is known as the “showroom”, which
means customers test the products in an offline shop and place
orders online via websites, QR codes, cell phones, tablets, and so
forth.
Since this kind of business involves both online and offline
activities, it has brought more logistical pressure. For example,
buyers expect to receive their goods with no delay after they
clicking the “complete job” button on Tmall. To satisfy the
requirement of ever-increasing omni-channel shoppers, Company
YT expects to implement omni-channels marketing management.
One typical model of omni-channels marketing management
concentrates on integrating online e-commerce and offline
physical stores and aims at delivering goods to customers from
the nearest physical stores or warehouses. Traditionally, Company
YT gets orders from trading platforms and delivers goods from one
of its warehouses. In contrast to this, as shown in Fig. 18, Company
YT with omni-channels marketing management collects orders
from all its online sales channels, inquiries location and distance
information from Google Maps, acquires inventory information
from its offline business partners, and selects the nearest offline
stores or warehouses to deliver goods for each order. For example,
a customer in City B-H purchases an air purifier on TMall.com, and
the nearest warehouse of Company YT is in City B-F, two hundred
kilometres away from City B-H. Through enquiry, Company YT
finds that one of its business partners, Wal-Mart, is just two
kilometres away from the destination of this order, so a delivery
task for this order is send to Wal-Mart. Furthermore, several
analyses can be done based on data collected by Company YT. By
summarising the sales distribution of its product, Company YT can
make precise deliveries from warehouses to physical stores before
the products are sold.
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 41

Fig. 18. A general view of Company YT’s omni-channel marketing management business model.
42Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
However, Company YT is currently faced with the following
problems when implementing the omni-channel marketing
management:
(1) The sales staffs are not able to update the type and quantity
of finished products in real time due to the unavailability of
automatic information upload. It is now done by human power.
(2) When an order comes from one online channel, such
as Tmall.com ®, the status of the inventory cannot be synchro-
nised among all the other marketing channels.
(3) The intra system cannot integrate order information
from every channel for further analysis and provide support for
the decision-making of goods distribution.
(4) When a sales staff logs on to any online platform, the intra
enterprise systems are actually connected to the Internet,
which results in potential risks in information security.
Typical heterogeneous systems integration solutions, such as
SOA with web service, cannot meet Company YT’s specific
requirements for omni-channel marketing management due to
the following reasons:
(1) Introducing every online platform partner’s e-
commerce system would break the unity of Company YT’s
own intra system, probably resulting in an isolated system since
the intra system is specially designed for Company YT and the
company is accustomed to its operating system, Company YT
expects to retain all current business processes and operating
behaviours. E-commerce platforms are only used as a source of
data and a release of media- and business-related information.
(2) Each platform partner also has its standard business
processes. It will not adjust the processes to meet
Company YT’s requirements. Traditional process analysis and
process inter-operating methods are therefore no longer
applicable.
In order to solve the problem of integrating multiple marketing
channels, it is necessary for Company YT to complete cross-
computing environments processes modelling, analysis and
design. Meanwhile, an integration platform is needed to manage
omni-channel marketing. Omni-channel inventory synchronisa-
tion and logistical coordination would be realised.
In this case, Taobao.com®, JD.com®, and several physical stores
are selected to illustrate how to achieve omni-channel marketing
management. Integrating solutions for other e-business platforms
using ENI-P would follow a similar process. Taobao.com® and
JD.com® are the biggest and most famous e-business platforms in
China. Most companies with online business choose these two as
their e-business platforms. The selling services on both Taobao.com
and JD.com such as product catalogue creation, customer online
ordering, order management, and customer and supplier estimation,
are well-designed. With the expanding of the e-business industry,
Taobao.com and JD.com have been developing quickly.
Assuming that an order is placed on Taobao.com, two issues are
considered under omni-channel marketing management. First,
Company YT needs to assign a delivery task of this order to the
nearest physical store; on the other hand, Company YT needs to
synchronise the inventory data among Taobao.com, JD.com, and its
intra system. As shown in Fig. 19 there are eight collaboration points
(CPs) [55–57] in the omni-channel marketing management process.
CP1 is used to inform Company YT’s sell system when new
orders come from the Taobao.com platform. If a customer makes
an order through the Taobao.com ® cloud service, the order could be
an input of the ordering process of Company YT’s intra system.
CP2 is key for inventory synchronisation. It is used to
synchronise inventory information in Company YT’s intra system
when Taobao updates its inventory after new orders are placed.
CP3 is used to synchronise inventory information between
Company YT’s intra system and JD.com.
CP4 is used to collaborate with Google Maps when location
parameters are updated. With the help of Google Map’s API, the
distance or travel time between any two points in a location set
will be calculated as input parameters of the algorithm.
CP5 is supposed to enquire inventory information of the
selected physical stores. If the selected stores have no inventory,
the next nearest stores are selected.
CP6 occurs between Company YT and the selected physical
store. It is used to inform the store to deliver the goods.
CP7 and CP8 are used to synchronise the delivery status among
Taobao.com , Company YT, and the physical store.
With these CPs, Company YT’s sell system can be informed, can
deliver goods when a consumer places an order on Taobao, update
inventory information in real time, and share updated inventory
information with JD.com. In such a situation, an ENI-P could
complete these tasks through CPs automatically and seamlessly
instead of handling them by manpower, which has the possibility
of causing more errors and creating less security.
Each CP is realised by a CA in this integration system. The
agency mechanism in ENI-P checks every access and ensures that
service invocation is legal when it is used to connect the systems.
With the framework above, there is clearly a feasible method of
inventory synchronisation. The sharing of inventory data in
Taobao.com® with Company YT could be realised by three steps,
namely inventory extraction, inventory standardisation and
inventory importation, as shown in Fig. 20. Other CPs are similar.
Corresponding web services are developed and named as
Taobao_Inventory_Extract, Inventory_Standardisation, and Inven-
tory_Importation. Taobao_Inventory_Extract extracts inventory
data from the Taobao.com ® cloud and puts them into the input
layer of a temporary database. Inventory_Standardisation trans-
lates the data from an input layer into the format that the intra
system adopts and puts the result into the output layer of the
Temporary database. Inventory_Importation will finally import the
standardised data into the intra system.
Taobao_Inventory_Extract is an API service. It is encapsulated
into a web service by choosing an API from the API library. This
service is a dedicated interface for Taobao.com® and is the key of
the whole process. Inventory_Importation is similar to Taobao_In-
ventory_Extract and is the API with the intra system. Inventor -
y_Standardisation is an ordinary web service and could be used in
many similar processes. It is an encapsulated by the ENI-P
encapsulation module.
After these web services are registered in the ENI-P, they could
be orchestrated into a new web service, named Taobao_Inventor-
y_Synchronisation. This process is generated with a mapping
mechanism by the service orchestration module in the ENI-P. It
could be deployed on the CA as a web service and could provide a
user interface for invocation [6,55–57].
Similar to the Taobao Inventory Synchronisation process, the
data could be sent from Company YT’s intra system to JD.com. By
developing platform services, the inventory synchronisation of
Company YT’s multi-channels is realised.
8.2. Whole product lifecycle management
Due to increasing awareness of deteriorating air quality in China,
demand for air purifiers has risen sharply recent years. This trend
provides opportunities for Company YT to grow stronger and larger.
For Company YT, the efficiency of the CLSC of its filter, which is a
critical part of product, has a direct effect on the company’s core
competitiveness. In fact, establishing an effective CLSC of its filters is
key for successfully achieving cost reduction and environment
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 43

protection of Company YT. However, one key challenge during the

44Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45

Receive
Ready order Ready for
for new inventory
order updating
1 Input order JD.com
Receive new
Update
order
Company inventory

confirmed YT
Taobao.com Update
inventory 3 Order
Update close
2
inventory
Ready
for
delivery Destination
Location
change
Receive query
Deliver Update
4 location
parameters
Confirmed
Customer Nearest
store
gets product
finded
Store X
Lookup
inventory
Inquire 5
inventory

Information
acquired

Receive query

Google Push inventory

Confirmed Has data
Map No
Inventory Inventory

Resolve
location Search for Inform Receive
6
another store delivery task delivery task

Parameters
acquired Product Product Confirmed
7 ready ready

Resolve
location Update
inventory

Ready for
delivery
Deliver 8

Deliver
Customer
gets product
Goods
received

Fig. 19. Business process model of omni-channel marketing management.

45Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
operation of the CLSC is that the information flow almost breaks
down after products are delivered to customers. The uncertainty of
the quantity, quality and timing of products in the CLSC is caused by
the unavailability of information and by the lack of control in the
returning supply chain.
When considering the traditional forward supply chain of the
air purifier, an intuitive solution to acquire information of products
is to set up an RFID network to collect data. However, once an air
purifier is delivered to customers, its area of operation is expanded
to the extent that the amount of RFID readers are needed to
identify RFID tags, which is not cost-effective.
A new recycling strategy is proposed for Company YT,
considering the unique characteristic of the filters’ life cycle. As
shown in Fig. 21, during the process of CLSC’s operation, the whole
machine and filter follow different life cycles. The whole machine
extends its life span via maintenance, while the filters are recycled
and reused for the manufacturing of new products. Generally
speaking, the filter of an air purifier expires before the whole
machine does. Customers, thus, can continue to use an air purifier
by replacing the expired filter. This characteristic of the lifecycle
makes it possible for Company YT to collect data about a filter
when it is used and recycle the expired filter when customers
46Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
Taobao_Inventory_Synchronisation
Taobao_Inventory_Extract
Extract Inventory Inventory List
from Taobao
Data request
Standardized
Inventory_Standardisation
Standardize data into
Inventory data
required format Initial
Inventory data
Import Inventory
into intra system Import request
Fig. 20. Inventory synchronisation process.
Fig. 21. Product lifecycle management of Company YT.
replace it with a new one. Therefore, the proposed strategy
integrates the sell and recycling processes of filters, which means
Company YT provides the timely replacement service of filters to
achieve sales and recycling simultaneously. A small geographic
region—State B is selected as a pilot region to verify this strategy. In
order to implement the recycling strategy at high efficiency,
Company YT has to complete some tasks as follows:
(1) Monitor the status of every filter, including type, location
and the expected expiration time and summarise the
distributing status.
(2) Monitor the flow of its products. Since different cities
embody different economic environments, new products are
more likely to be offered in city B-H, which is relatively
more developed in comparison to city B-F. However, these
products may go into the second hand market and finally flow
into city B-F, which results in the phenomenon that the
actual distribution of Company YT’s products is usually
inconsistent with the sales distribution of the whole machine.
Regarding this fact, it is apparently not advisable to build up
recycling facilities and teams according to sales distribution.
Therefore, the knowledge of product flow becomes a
necessity.
Taobao cloud data
Inventory_Extract
Temporary database
Input layer
Standardisation
Output layer
Inventory_Import
Import YT enterprise system
database
(3) Make a plan and set up an infrastructure for EOL based on
the information of product distribution and flow. Measures
include
but are not limited to replacing expired filters with new ones
and establishing a recycling network.
(0) Making recommendations for filter replacement to
customers whose filters have expired and providing replacement
services for them.
To effectively acquire and process the required information, an
RFID network is used in the forward supply chain where products
are limited to areas under the control of Company YT; sensors in
the air purifier are used as a tool to detect the operation status of
filters in the reverse supply chain. In the reverse supply chain,
customers can use cell phones or tables to get data collected by
sensors via Bluetooth and transmit them to data portals via a
wireless network. The framework of the ENI-Platform is shown in
Fig. 22. The components involved are as follows:
(1) A Passive RFID Tag is selected due to the simplicity
of product tracking. It is small-sized and contains its own ID,
product type and configuration parameters like production
data and expected expiration date. It is supposed to be
detected by an RFID reader automatically when it goes into the
 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 47

interrogation zone. data collecting point in areas under the control of Company YT.
(2) An RFID reader is a fixed reader with a built-in With an RFID
Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 48

Fig. 22. Product lifecycle data collecting system.

 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
reader, product information from each product at each site
can be gathered at a fast speed and then be sent to the data
portal.
(3) A Sensor is installed in every air purifier to monitor the
status of the filter. With a sensor, information about the air
purifier filters can be gathered at a fast speed and used for
further analysing.
(4) A Cell Phone or Tablet App is a media that collects data
from the sensors in air purifiers via Bluetooth and transmits
these data to data portals via Mobile Internet.
(5) A Data Portal is installed in either a cell phone, a personal
computer or a processing server. The Data Portal collects data
from different sensors or channels, identifies the collected
data, and transfers it to a standard format. It utilises an SAA to
access the Data Destination System, get the data routing
information, connect to the SAA in the target CA and send the
data out.
(6) A Collaborate Agent is deployed in its partner companies for
communication between Company YT and its partners. It also
can provide services that integrate different business pro-
cesses.
(7) The Internet plays the role of communication media.
(8) An ENI-Platform-based collecting network consists of both
hardware and software and mainly completes the task of
collecting data from field data portals. According to different
requirements, it could be organised in different structures,
which offers the whole product lifecycle management system
a reliable and flexible framework in real application. User
interface is available at every centre node in the ENI-Platform
for user interaction.
(9) An information database keeps the data collected from
the field data portal database by the ENI-Platform. The data
could be further manipulated and analysed by the data
processing centre. Every physical node in the ENI-Platform
other than the data portal node owns an information
49
database.
(10) The data processing centre (DPC) acquires data
from the information database and accomplishes several
operations step by step. First, it decides the location of a specific
product based on a series of tracking information by finding
its latest appearance. Second, it analyses sensor data from the
specific product and decides whether the filter needs to be
replaced. Then, it sends notifications to customers whose filters
need to be replaced and offers a report to the portal for decision-
making.
With all hardware and software mentioned above ready, here is
a typical application scenario of how Company YT could
implement the whole product lifecycle management and recycle
expired filters in state B. Suppose that an air purifier is delivered
from Company YT to a customer. Before delivery, it is easy to
position the product via RFID readers built in a factory, warehouse
or stores. When it goes to the customer, there are few RFID readers
built around the product and most products cannot be detected via
an RFID network. Then, sensors in the air purifiers replace RFID
readers and collect information about filters when customers are
using the products. Each air purifier contains a diagnostic
application for filters, which monitors the status of its filter and
uses the indicator light to warn customers that the filter is about to
expire. On the other hand, Company YT advises customers to install
an app to monitor the status of their filters. This app can collect
information from sensors, put records in the data portal and send
information to the analysis centre of Company YT. Thus, Company
YT can obtain a detailed status of every filter based on
comprehensive information including air quality, weather condi -
tions, etc., and propose the replacement of air filters to customers
via SAA.
To recycle a filter and provide replacement services for
customers is only the first step in the business process. Week
by week, similar product tracking information accumulates and
finally a statistic analysis is available to provide a clear view of
what is going on in state B. A manager named M-B at headquarters
44 Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45
logs into the portal and reads the analysis report formed by DPC.
The report shows the quantity of different types of filters in city
B-H and B-F. It indicates that city B-F needs to strengthen its
recycling network to fulfil the increasing need. Then he orders a
manager named M-C in city B-F to select additional suitable service
places. M-C also resorts to the system to find the similar distribution
report and finally takes some measures. Therefore, by introducing the
ENI-Platform, Company YT can see a whole picture of its product
distribution all over state B and has a clear understanding about the
MOL and EOL status of products. The sound data finally offers a
powerful support for Company YT’s decision in recycling strategy and
in dynamic infrastructure approach.
Usually to achieve such a good performance would require a
high cost for a traditional solution. However, Company YT has
found its cost is significantly lower and it can meanwhile promote
sales of filters. All in all, the ENI-Platform helps Company YT
achieve all expected missions with a friendly maintenance
environment at a reasonable cost.
9. Summary and conclusions
In response to the urgent requirement for closed-loop product
tracking and feedback by enterprise networks in a sensing
environment, this paper has proposed a practical paradigm from
the information service system point of view, to realise the
tracking of product information throughout all phases of a
product’s lifecycle and managing of omni-channel marketing. As
a result, the proposed method can improve product tracking and
marketing channel management capabilities and reduce the
operation cost.
The paper discussed the special issues of enterprise network
integration, closed-loop supply chain management and omni -
channel marketing management in sensing environments.
This paper reviews the challenges of enterprise network
integration, especially the integrating requirements in a sensing
environment. In order to overcome the high cost barrier of special
real-time networks, SOA based ENI-P is developed to collect,
transfer and fuse lifecycle and omni-channel data of products. ENI P
is a loosely coupled infrastructure with all of features of an SOA and
web service. It provides tools for service encapsulation, service
orchestration and service management. Its CA and DP mechanisms
provide a secure channel for intra information systems integration
of partner companies. ENI-P also realises products’ data collection
and transformation. ENI-P is also easy to deploy and reconfigure.
A case study is provided at the end of this paper. In this case, the
requirement for business information integration among multiple
channels and product information tracing at the EOL phase are
further cleared. The information service system can satisfy all of
these requirements.
Cloud computing, big data, sensing technologies as well as new
business models are the driving processes and information
collaboration across enterprises are more complex and diversified.
Due to the presence of organisational boundaries, data and process
in collaborative businesses tends to be fragmented. Data storage
and process models of one business operation are dispersed among
several networked enterprises. Meanwhile, besides product whole
lifecycle management and Omni-channel marketing, there would
generate more management models in various business domains
to meet the requirements of customers, markets, and public
policies. These management models make demands on data
convergence oriented enterprise network integration. An ENI-P is
developed for enterprise network integration in this environment.
However, as shown in case study, the implementations of ENI-P for
different management models are quite different. The ENI-P
developed in the case can only solve part of the typical problems
and is only suitable for Product whole lifecycle management and
Omni-channel marketing. When facing issues of integration for
other models, the implementation of the ENI-P could be more
complicated. How to implement an ENI-P suitable for different
scenes needs further research.
Acknowledgements
This work is sponsored by the China High-Tech 863 Program,
No. 2001AA415340 and No. 2007AA04Z1A6, the China Natural
Science Foundation, No. 61174168, the Aviation Science Founda-
tion of China, No. 20100758002 and 20128058006.
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Pei-Xuan Xie received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua
University in July 2011. Currently he is a master candidate of
engineering in the National CIMS Engineering Research Centre, the
Department of Automation, Tsinghua University. His research focuses
on enterprise modelling and process modelling integration.
Xiao-Qian Feng received his bachelor’s
degree from Tsinghua University in July
2011. Currently he is a master candidate
of engineering in the National CIMS
Engineering Research Centre, the
Department of Automation, Tsinghua
University. His research focuses on
enterprise modelling and process
modelling integration.

Qing Li, PhD, is a professor of the Department of Automation,

Tsinghua University, P.R. China. He received his bachelor, master and
doctor’s degrees from Nanjing University of Aeronautics &
Astronautics. He has taught at Tsinghua University since 2000 with
major research interests in system architecture, enter prise modelling Rui-Yang Du received his bachelor’s
and system performance evaluation. He has published six books and degree from Tsinghua University in
more than 140 papers in esteemed magazines in China and abroad. July 2011. Currently he is a master
candidate of engineering in the National
CIMS Engineering Research Centre,
the Department of Automation,
Tsinghua University. His research
focuses on enterprise modelling and
Hao Luo received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in process modelling integration.
July 2012. Currently he is a master candidate of engineering in the
National CIMS Engineering Research Centre, the Department of
Automation, Tsinghua University. His research focuses on enterprise
modelling and process modelling integration.
Q. Li et al. / Computers in Industry 70 (2015) 23–45 55