Towards integrated information models for data and documents

Numerous approaches to information modeling exist within chemical engineering representing product data, work processes, or other information. These models have a limited scope and were developed independently from each other. Thus, extended and general information models for chemical engineering are still missing as they are needed for the efficient support of work processes and for the development of domain-specific software tools. In this paper, open issues of information modeling are discussed. These are the integrated representation of information and work processes, the description of documents as carriers of data, and the integration of existing data models. The conceptual model framework CLiP is presented, which holds solution approaches for these three issues. Further, it can serve as an integration basis for existing information models. The paper further presents an overall architecture of a tool supporting the development and integration of information models. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.