Page 8 - Logistics News June 2016
P. 8
integration
The world of integration
– innovators and innovations
Integration is an evolving field, Acknowledgement to ChainLink Research
blending data, things and people
across systems, mobile devices and WITH SO much connectivity and sharing of processes,
the web. The world of integration is moving data may not always be the way to go. Data
about sharing data and processes. movement used to be the standard approach: moving
So today’s innovations should take files between parties. However, in the web world with
in any kind of data and transform REST architecture and federated data models that
enable sharing and leveraging of each other’s web
it – EDI, spreadsheets, big data, pages, processes and data can be shared without data
and many more forms. movement.
Some interesting examples include:
Federated data models – here, the master data,
metadata, and physical data are distributed. But there is
a unifying data schema that allows for integration. The
solution maps schemas and yet allows for autonomy of
each database and/or organisation.
Unifying B2B and A2A – as mentioned, many tech
companies provide both of these. But only a few have
fully harmonised them into one engine. Some engines
are capable of date translation and can pull almost any
data format, translate (one protocol to another) and
transform it (as in data cleaning). Using a rules engine,
it then moves the data to its destination – export service
and mailbox for B2B or, through an enterprise service
bus, to an application.
Multi-party processing – another challenge in
integration is how to harmonise and handle evolution
and changes in data and processes, yet at the same time
maintain autonomy. The requirement here is that each
entity still needs to operate within the rules of their own
data model, yet for certain processes they need to share
data and perform workflows and transactions.
One network’s approach is to build on open Java
standards and employ an approach that is called
‘mixins’. This approach allows entities to work
independently, but to also ‘inherit’ data models when
working on a joint task. So beyond translation, a process
may want to adopt the partner’s rules or model for a
process or task.
For example, think of the contract manufacturer
(CM) who stores components for several customers.
The CM has a parts master in a certain format. Each
customer has a different parts master, so there could
be a dozen parts masters floating around. The CM can’t
change its model for each customer. And the customers
surely are not going to change their model. Now add
to that specific accounting rules or inventory liability,
status, stocking rules and allocation. When and how
inventory would be considered available to promise is
very important, since supply chain owners/dominators
expect highly integrated digital supply chains and rapid
response.
6 June 2016 | Logistics News
