Linked Data as Enabler for Mobile Applications for Complex Tasks in Industrial Settings Markus Graube, Jens Ziegler, Leon Urbas Technische Universität Dresden Institute of Automation 01062 Dresden markus.graube@tu-dresden.de jens.ziegler@tu-dresden.de leon.urbas@tu-dresden.de Jan Hladik SAP AG SAP Research Dresden jan.hladik@sap.com Abstract Nowadays, apps provide support for various simple tasks. They are easy to use andhighly usable. However, future apps should support more complex workflows especially when trying to enter the professional business world. They needto provide higher reusability and composability in order to make them suitable for complex and alterable workflows that are common in industry. The concept of App Orchestration allows supporting complex tasks with aid of an ensemble of adapted and managed apps. Therefore, the apps raise several demands on the underlying information backend. This article describes these requirements and presents the Linked Data approach, which is a possible methodology for an integrated, semantically described information space for this purpose. It describes possible uses and benefits for the concept of App Orchestration and shows them in a use case of mobile maintenance. It further discusses the current status of the approach and provides future research challenges. 1. INTRODUCTION Apps are changing mobile computing and the way of using the World Wide Web. They serve one single purpose and are optimized for one single target platform. They allow easy customization of mobile device functionality by the end users. Huge stores provide countless apps for virtually every purpose. Today’s app concept focuses on simple tasks. They are loosely distributed in the daily routine of the end user, which is a typical use case for consumer products. Typical use cases in industrial environments, however, are complex workflows with many well-structured and interdependent tasks. Today, there are no means for composingdifferent apps according to a well-defined workflow. On the other hand, there are usually dozens ofapps for one purpose. Many apps are structurally very similar, e.g. because they support the same cognitive tasks of the user, they process equivalent data structures, or they serve the same purpose but are offered by different providers. Still, there are no means to use these structural similarities in terms of software reuse. The app concept of the next decade has to consider the fact that composability and reusability are key factors for value-adding business models. It has to provide means to generalize apps from a single use case, to reuse apps for different purposes and to compose apps to larger and more sophisticated applications that support a more complex workflow. This requires self- descriptiveness of apps, interoperability between apps, and compliance to standards upon which future infrastructures are based. The concept of App Orchestration proposed by Ziegler et al. [16] provides an answer to these challenges. It proposes a pragmatic model-driven approach for app generalization and description. It uses an App Orchestration process to select, adapt and manage ensembles of generic apps according to given workflow models. The concept relies on models for users, business processes, the context, and so-called Generic Apps. It uses various domain models asdata sources. The main prerequisite for this concept is comprehensive, semantically linked information, both for the design and the use of future apps. Unfortunately, the current trend to proprietary, service-based content delivery and apps as exclusive access points to information contradicts the idea of a web of Linked Open Data. This trendhinders innovation and diminishes the evolution of mobile computing. It is a major scientific challenge to provide appropriate approaches for open information for an app concept of the next decade. This article provides requirements, methods and a possible approach for an integrated, semantically described information space for this purpose based onLinked Data. It describes possible uses and benefits for the concept of App Orchestration and illustrates its benefits with an exemplary use case in the domain of 978-1-4799-0864-6/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE