Vertical Integration 13-11
ERP frameworks will become even more comprehensive and include functional modules currently
belonging
to
the
MES
level.
Such
a
mostly
distributed
approach
for
the
MES
level
will,
however,
impose
more
demanding
requirements
on
the
middleware
to
support
better
exibility.
Concepts
emerging
in
the
IT
world
like
ontologies
to
formally
describe
semantic
information
will
have
to
be
used
and
addi-
tional
abstraction
levels
must
be
introduced.
Another
emerging
middleware
concept
possibly
facilitat-
ing
the
interconnection
of
heterogeneous
soware
frameworks
are
service-oriented
architectures
(SoA)
that
mi
ght
ea
se
th
e
ac
tual
ve
rtical
in
tegration.
e need for abstract interoperability layers is visible already today. Contrar ...