InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
October 19, 1998
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Data ExchangeThen there's B2B Integration Server from webMethods Inc. This is an Extensible Markup Language-based solution that automates the exchange of data between applications, Web sites, and legacy data sources by enfolding business services in an XML wrapper. It uses webMethods' Web Interface Definition Language to describe access to local databases and applications, and remote HTML and XML Web resources. A built-in template-based data-mapping feature handles data translation.
B2B's server-side business-logic modules can access various relational databases or link up with ERP applications from Baan, PeopleSoft, and SAP with some integration work. CEO Phillip Merrick says B2B Integration Server is preferable to using electronic data interchange because "you don't have to force-fit everything into a set of codes defined by a transaction set that was specified maybe 15 or 20 years ago, like EDI's ANSI X.12." B2B lets companies use either standard XML encoding agreed on with business partners or an application programming interface-based approach using XML remote-procedure calls.
Big-Business Approach
For large multinational corporations, Ariba Technologies Inc.'s Order Request Management System sits on top of an ERP system to communicate information about orders between buyers and sellers. It works with EDI and E-commerce systems. Employees can place orders over the Web that will be automatically fulfilled by designated suppliers.
Cisco Systems uses Ariba to automate its purchasing ERP system, which is based on Oracle10.x. For high-value items, employees send purchase requisitions over the Web through Ariba to supervisors for approval, instead of filling out a paper form and going through a manual cycle. On approval, purchase requests are imported into the Oracle ERP system where the process is completed and the system either prints out a purchase order or sends it to suppliers through EDI. Lower-value items are ordered directly through the online catalog set up in Ariba. Cisco buys about $500 million worth of products a year, and automating the process has saved a considerable amount of time and money through the automation, says Cisco program manager Carolyn DePalmo.
Many large businesses use middleware to tie their enterprise-wide systems together. IBM's MQSeries, with more than 55% of the market, dominates. MQSeries is messaging-oriented middleware. IBM is introducing new products that will enhance MQSeries' ability to link disparate systems. One new product is MQIntegrator, which lets users interconnect applications by using what is essentially a database engine that lets them build business rules and templates as line items in a database. To modify discount rules or change a field descriptor, users need only change lines of code in the database. MQIntegrator first shipped in May, and is available on Windows NT, some Unix platforms, and MVS.
Another IBM product in the works is MQWorkflow, which sits above MQIntegrator and handles workflow. The aim is to let companies come in from the business process reengineering or business integration end, define the business workflow or process flow, define business rules, and then have application templates that link their various applications together over MQSeries as the transport mechanism.
Mapics Inc., which offers Mapics XA, an ERP application for discrete and batch process manufacturers, will work with its affiliates to create custom interfaces to link its ERP system to those of other vendors on request. "You need data translation and cleansing to send data between different ERP systems, so we don't have standard interfaces for ERP packages such as SAP," says Joan Harbin, director of corporate communications worldwide. Mapics XA has 46 modules and provides predefined translation maps to communicate over EDI with various large corporations such as Kmart, Wal-Mart, and J.C. Penney.
Leveraging Standards
Companies with extensive homegrown systems might leverage these and industry standards the way Miller SQA Inc. has done. The Holland, Mich., office-furniture company buys used cubicle dividers, hanging components, and work surfaces, and reworks them to create new products for sale. Its business strategy is to compress the information and manufacturing cycles as much as possible, so it looks at its suppliers and customers as part of a fully integrated supply chain. Miller SQA uses Symix SyteLine from Symix Systems Inc. as its ERP package and stores data in Progress databases running under SyteLine. Miller SQA has several hundred suppliers, so creating interfaces to all of their ERP systems was "unthinkable," says Jim Von Ins, Miller SQA's director of IS.
Miller SQA opted to use a combined Web-EDI solution because "EDI provides an industry-standard format, ANSI X.12, in which to exchange data, and most suppliers have Internet access and only need to point their browser at our URL," Von Ins explains. Miller SQA set up a Web site using Lotus Development's Domino, and developed SupplyNet, an application to extract customers' orders from its Progress databases and publish them on its Web site. SupplyNet was written in the Webspeed 2.0 development and deployment environment from Progress Software Corp. Suppliers log on to the Web site, download the files in EDI format, and drop them into their own ERP systems. This real-time access to data has improved shipment statistics considerably: By late summer, Miller SQA had gone a record 45 consecutive days with 100% on-time and complete shipments. The industry norm is in the 90th percentile, Von Ins says.
Download a table of products that can be adapted to integrate applications from disparate ERP systems as a PDF file. To view a PDF file, download the Adobe Acrobat Reader. |
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