Data protocols for the industrial virtual enterprise

High performance computer networks allow companies to share data and technology electronically and thus collaborate in virtual enterprises. One barrier to such collaboration is the lack of interoperability among the application systems of different companies-the data produced by the systems at one company cannot be read by those at another. The National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIP) Consortium was formed to address this problem. The article describes three layered protocols being developed by the NIIP data protocol team.