As a further highly important aspect, it is to be remembered that, in contrast to the early
As a result of the large number of IT solutions now available, many sectors of industry have
experienced a serious problem of constantly rising costs, often difficult to justify in commercial
terms, for maintenance, updating, modifications and new implementations. Tools with a wide
range of data models, countless interface protocols and versions necessarily lead to a lack of
transparency and thus to greater and greater problems with the stability of the systems as a
whole. It cannot of course be the solution to prescribe a uniform global data model or harmo-
nized interfaces. A solution has to be developed which on the one hand ensures the greatest
possible room for development and on the other hand alleviates the problems described above.
One promising concept for this is service-oriented architecture, in which the above-mentioned
rule-based and situation-controlled cooperation between machines and human beings is orga-
nized.