The Internet of Actors – A Peer-to-Peer AgileValue Creation Network (contribution to S-BPM ONE 2019 (Seville, Spain)), with Reinhard Gniza)
The intra- and inter-company work models change from classic, pre-defined,
inflexible business processes to agile value creation networks. Human, machines
and software collaborate in an integrated and coordinated way to fullfill their
objectives. This necessitates a new dimension of agility, speed of transformation and individuality. We strongly believe that we need an open network of
self-coordinating, modular components that offer fully-fledged interoperability
to tackle these challenges on the way to autonomous software systems. At the
same time such a network will offer an economic alternative to the classic, centralized platform models and standards of the current IT-industry. These, e.g.
BPMN, ”fail to guarantee that standard-conforming business process models
are interoperable (platform-independent)” ([B¨or11]).
Some scientists are already aware of these challenges and laid out fundamental
groundwork. Christian Stary proposes ”a System-of-Systems specification as
a network of cooperating behavior entities” ([Sta17]). These and similar ideas
converge on the creation of a new era in systems design.
This whitepaper presents a methodology, a modular concept and the foundation
of the Internet of Actors (IoA). The IoA will reduce complexity, programming
efforts and unclear interfaces while creating an Interoperability Network. It is
going to be an enabler for agile, decentralized, self-coordinating value creation
networks, acting as catalyst for the Internet of Things, Digital Transformation
and Industry 4.0.