Industrial semiosis: founding the deployment of the ubiquitous information infrastructure

Increasingly, models and data pertaining to products, resources and industrial processes are being stored on computers. Moreover, corporate and personal computers and information systems are rapidly being connected into intranets, extranets, and a world wide web making ubiquitous information services for industry feasible, both from the technical and economical points of view. But whereas information and communication technology (ICT) developments are breathtaking, our methods to deploy these technologies in industry do not keep pace. They are developed slowly, heavily influenced by mature technologies, often at odds with newer technologies. Following an effort to bridge the gap between methods and technology, this paper presents the result of a fundamental investigation into the relationship between industrial networks on the one hand, and the possible services of ICT networks on the other hand. The result is a framework of industrial semiosis (FIS) which applies and further elaborates the concepts of semiotics in the context of industry. These concepts are technology-independent, but at the same time they support an easy characterization, evaluation, and inclusion of the services of new technologies. The framework is proposed to influence more concrete, directly applicable modelling research and information system development and implementation methods, as well as curriculum components covering information and automation systems and e-commerce.