In the age of Internet commerce, companies face unprecedented levels of demand for increasingly adaptable process management. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is providing the means to respond to this demand. Business process platforms built on SOA can quickly adjust business process workflows in response to real-time business need. They're the key to success in new-generation supply chain management.
Indeed, closing the time gap between making a new business decision and implementing it in the enterprise is crucial to sustaining a competitive advantage. Global competition in end products and outsourced competencies has heated up tremendously. The "Google effect" is making access to product information for consumers available in a split second, making pricing transparency a crucial factor in the speed of business. The speed of the Internet has also introduced a new element into product life cycles— the speed of fashion cycles. Cell phones and other consumer electronic goods are becoming accessories to personal fashion statements, creating very rapid commoditization. Managing these fast product life cycles and creating business process innovations are two of the imperatives of new-generation supply chain management.
In this new generation, business process management focuses on making plans happen.With rapid "plan-docheck- act" cycles, businesses are able to handle plan versus execution gaps on a daily basis. By shaping demand to match supply, they can reduce inventory and increase customer satisfaction, helping the bottom line.
Shortcomings of some systems
While many vendors are delivering products that implement business process platforms using SOA, most lack the depth of supply chain management knowledge that can maximize the potential of a single platform to design, test and execute new or changed business processes. Typical large companies have hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of enterprise applications, even if they have implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The general rule of thumb is that for every billion dollars of revenue there are at least 100 enterprise applications. Each of these applications "speaks" a different language or dialect; it uses a different data model, making it difficult for "cross talk."
Most of these applications are built from transaction systems. They are good for understanding history and linking it to the present, but they don't enable business to use that history to intelligently plan for the future. They're also good at defining exceptions and sending alarms, but they lack the capability to execute changes in a workflowbased system built on predefined, "what-if " scenarios.
The new generation of supply chain management (SCM) must marry the two paradigms and take data from the past and use it for modeling the future. It needs to give business a window into the actual state of a supply chain, not just a picture of the plan. By connecting the transaction paradigm to the planning paradigm, an SOA platform can enable businesses to work at the speed of the Internet. For example, a transaction system can send an alert that a truck is running 30 minutes late on its way to a particular store. But it can't relate the event to the results—that being late means missing the cross-docking opportunity and, as a consequence, being out of stock on a particular item at that store.
By connecting the transition paradigm to the planning paradigm, an SOA platform can enable businesses to work at the speed of the Internet.
The power of the i2 business content library
An SOA platform should have access to all of a company's data and use workflows built with best-in-class knowledge and proprietary intellectual property (IP) to make the processes happen.Workflows enable systems and people to interact and collaborate to do a piece of standardized work. They represent the business process, which in today's world is conducted across many countries and many companies. Knowing how to find and understand the company's data is the first step in creating a workflow.
The i2 Agile Business Process Platform (ABPP) is built on SOA, and delivers a business content library (BCL) containing a collection of workflows and solutions that have incorporated best practices for business processes. These workflows are starting points for bringing the latest competitive advantage to the business processes of a specific industry. The key ingredients of the ABPP's service-oriented architecture are:
- Web services: a standard way to access predefined functionality in a software code, and business process description languages
- A development environment for composite applications consisting of Web services, selected functions from within other applications or entire systems whose outputs have been packaged as Web services
- Master data management: understanding the various data dialects and synchronizing information across the universe of applications in the enterprise
- Business content library containing business workflows and solutions
i2 is continually expanding its business content library with workflow solutions it develops for specific industries. For example, a workflow for cell phone procurement can be used from the library and made specific to a particular telecommunications vendor. The workflow uses best practices, and can be customized to fit the exact business scenario of any telecommunications company. In essence, the library has many things in common with a conventional library. The workflows are like books with the right knowledge to solve a specific problem. Subscribers to the library have access to these best-in-class business process workflows.Within the ABPP design environment, these workflows can be implemented on top of a company's pre-existing IT systems and applications.
Many vendors that offer business process packaged software for the enterprise sell their IP as a license and provide maintenance releases to add functionality. These software packages incorporate best-in-class business processes. Customers using the software are expected to adjust their business processes to match the way the software works or to configure and customize it to suit their particular needs. It may take 12 to 18 months to implement this program, however, and nearly as long to receive new maintenance releases.
There are also custom software companies that are able to "make to order" software or business process workflows that are completely tailored to work the way a customer specifies. These systems are faster to develop, usually in six to nine months, for some targeted functionality that may not represent best practice. They are then maintained as custom systems for the customer. Both of these models are showing significant shortcomings for companies needing to operate in near real-time, where changes in workflows may have to be made on a daily basis.
Componentized workflows
The business content library from i2 combines the best of both models.With the SCM domain knowledge i2 brings (based on 20 years of supply chain innovation), BCL workflows can be implemented in a much shorter time. Because these business process workflows are componentized, the foundational building blocks are already there for build-to-order business content solutions. These solutions can be built and delivered quickly and easily.
This adaptability enables the business content library to keep up with the speed of marketplace conditions today—conditions requiring hundreds to thousands of decisions each day. Some affect people's duties, while others affect the enterprise. The ABPP has a user-friendly interface so that the business people making decisions can quickly have their changes implemented as they are needed. The interface allows business analysts to change workflows on demand: there is no need to wait for IT to execute complicated commands and updates to the system. For instance, adding a supplier to a workflow can be executed with minimal training.
Equally revolutionary is i2's model for continuously adding workflows to the business content library. Customers do not have to wait for a maintenance release or software upgrade. As new workflows are produced, they are published and available for download. Customers who have a subscription have access to the ever-expanding library and can stay up to date on the best business processes in their industry as they are developed. There is no lag time between their creation and implementation, because there is no waiting for a major release rollout. This ensures that the enterprise can adapt at the same speed at which business processes need to change.
Managed service programs
Customers can also subscribe to i2's Custom Workflow Management (CWM)—a managed service program. It can be tailored to meet all customer needs—from selfimplementations requiring occasional help, to turnkey projects that are implemented and managed by i2. Users who want to take more responsibility for developing and maintaining their own workflow can learn how through the ABPP BCL certification program (see sidebar).
As business process cycle times shrink and the scope of supply chain processes increases, the success of an enterprise depends on its ability to rapidly realign its business workflows to external changes. The i2 Agile Business Process Platform and business content library meet this need perfectly by providing best-practice solutions in componentized modules that perform like integrated applications. This capability enables the service-oriented architecture to perform to its fullest potential.
Certification on i2 ABPP
Because of the Studio built into the i2 Agile Business Process Platform, trained users can customize their own workflows. There are three different levels of training and certification that correspond to three levels of job responsibilities and duties:
- The ABPP Yellow Belt is a three-week, selfpaced training that introduces the user to the tools in ABPP. Data and process modeling are also covered. A Yellow Belt enables business analysts to make changes in workflows.
- The ABPP Green Belt is a three-week, self-paced training that can begin subsequent to completion of the Yellow Belt. The Green Belt focuses on master data management as well as on case studies with alerts, business rules and user-interface workflows. A Green Belt grants higher permissions to make changes to workflows and suits managers at the corporate level.
- The ABPP Black Belt is a four week, selfpaced training (for software developers) that can begin subsequent to completion of the Green Belt. It includes installation and configuration, data management and analysis, work with user interfaces and APIs, and plan management. A Black Belt enables developers to author and publish workflows in the ABPP business content library.
For information on the ABPP Business Content Library certification and training program, contact supply_chain_leader@i2.com.
— by Pallab Chatterjee
