The Integration Engineer
When it just has to work.

In the news, LANSA White Paper Tackles Supply Chain Synchronization.  I came across this on itjungle.com.  LANSA is a provider of business systems that are database centric.  You can register to get the whitepaper at this link.

But in a quick recap of what you will find in this whitepaper, Nahid Jilovec talks about the historical progress of B2B and some of the triumphs, roadblocks, and challenges that B2B as faced over the years.  But then he goes farther and describes Supply Chain Synchronization as containing three phases; Connection, Communication, and Collaboration.

I admit that during the first few pages it was reviewing things that I learned first hand, but would be a good introduction to someone new to B2B integration.  But then he goes farther and describes some more advanced tactical and strategic ideas that are worth the read.

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Do you have some Supply Chain News or Product that should be shared?  Or do you use an integration tool or service that other should know about?  If so, please send me a note with a link or reference to news@theintegrationengineer.com and I will try to blog about it here.

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In EDI there is a construct called a Loop.  But this is not like you think of a loop using an while  statement.  EDI is a file format, not a programming language.  When we speak of Loops in EDI, what we are really talking about is repeated structures, or segments.

EDI is not a flat file, but it does have repeated lines or segments.  Some times this repetition comes in groups and sometimes its just a line that get repeated in part of the document.  Repeating structured data is fundamental to EDI, but can become difficult to interpret at times.  Understanding the types of repeating structures and when and where they may occur can save a lot of time. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for innovation in Supply Chains isn’t hard to do, and it can have a great impact on the efficiency and therefore profitability of a business and market.  One place that greatly impacts the success of an integration is the desire to  build something new and sexy.  I rant sometimes about companies or development teams I have seen go down this path to their own detriment.

But today I want to tell you about a company I heard about that has created new efficiencies through integration efforts of a part of business you may have thought was already integrated.  The company is  INTTRA.  And instead of coming up with an untried technology, INTTRA used a combination of existing technologies to do something new. Read the rest of this entry »

There are job or task specific tools that will have a high importance to each integration task.  When working on an SAP system, your SAP tools will be very important.  But there are tools and skills that are also important regardless of the systems and technologies that you are working on.  For me, these are the top 5 tools that an Integration Engineer should be able to use proficiently.  Do you use any of these?  Do you have others? Read the rest of this entry »

Definition:  A database is a structured collection of records or data.

Many moons ago, I was shown an database that was constructed back in the 50s.  It was hand held and consisted of a stack of cards that contained information about plant biology.  There was a series of holes that wrapped around the cards, some of the holes were notches, and others were not.

To query the database, one placed a pin through one of the wholes and let the cards that had a notch fall out of the stack.  You could continue this process by removing and adding pins to select different combinations of data.

Once you had narrowed your search, you could read the cards, and retrieve the data.

This was a very manual process, and I doubt that anyone today would take the time to learn to use such a tool, let alone update or add records to it. Read the rest of this entry »

I found this video on YouTube.

RFID is exciting technology for integration engineers.  All of this data coming in will have to be aggregated and integrated by someone.  Also, one of the focuses of integration is to provide more and better information to people and systems.  With more and better information people, businesses and systems can make better choices and decisions. Read the rest of this entry »