Inengineering,interoperation is the setup of ad hoc components andmethods to make two or moresystems work together as a combinedsystem with some partial functionality during a certain time, possibly requiring humansupervision to perform necessary adjustments andcorrections.
This contrasts tointeroperability, which theoretically permits any number ofsystemscompliant to a givenstandard to work together a long time smoothly and unattended as a combinedsystem with the full functionality by the standard.
Another definition of interoperation: "services effectively combining multiple resources and domains...; requires interoperability".[1]
Interoperation is usually performed when thesystems having to be combined weredesigned beforestandardization (for examplelegacy systems), or when standardcompliance is too expensive, too difficult, or immature.
Interoperation may use followingmechanisms, components and methods:
In the area ofdata processing, interoperation may also use following components and methods:
 | This engineering-related article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |