The Integration Engineer
When it just has to work.

Finish The Paper Map

Today we will finish the three part series mapping exercise.  If you haven’t gotten a chance to read the first two posts in this exercise you may want to start with them, or to review them before moving on to the conclusion.  (read part One or read part Two)

In last post, we began mapping an EDI Invoice to invoice tables in an Open Office Database.  I chose these as Open Office is free and anyone can get a copy to repeat this exercise, and because Invoices are common documents that need to be handled in an e-commerce and supply chain scenario. (more…)

When setting up a supply chain integration, there is a lot of information that is exchanged. One thing that should be explored is what the supplier will do if they can’t process the order. This should be explored by making a list of all the errors that you can conceive of. This is the beginning of your test plan. Then having the Vendor respond with what they will do. (this doesn’t have to be actual transfer of erroring files, it can just be filing out a form with what will happen when said error is sent.  But of course, actually sending bad files to and from your test systems is a good idea when possible.) In the end you will have an idea of what will happen and what to expect when something goes wrong. However, sometimes this doesn’t cover all the bases.

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To paraphrase a quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune, “The Data must flow.”  And in the same sense that spice was the life blood of Arakis, the flow of data is the life blood of any e-commerce integration.  In the past I have talked about how RFID technology can be used to enhance the flow of data.  In an e-commerce supply chain it can give more up to date information as to where products are located, and thus what state they are in. (more…)

Continuing Mapping Exercise

Today we will identify our data source, and begin mapping the source data to the target data.  We identified our target format and placed that in the paper map last time.  If you didn’t read that post yet, you might want to review it quickly before continuing.  (read part One)

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Today at Spend Matters, Jason Busch posted the first in a series of articles about the gap between finance, and procurement in today’s business; “When Will finance Take Procurement Seriously?“  Jason quotes from a Basware study and professor Mark Frohlich, one if its authors, and makes some hard hitting and insightful points;

• 27% of companies surveyed have CFO’s holding a positive view of procurement’s impact on the bottom line.
• Finance does not believe that Procurement knows how to reduce costs. (more…)

This is a mapping exercise that will go through the process of creating a paper map, or mapping document.  We will start with an empty paper map that you can get here.  And we will end with a completed paper map document that documents what data from the source goes into what fields on the target.  This process will take more than one post, and I will link them together so that you can follow from one to the next.  Along the way, we will discuss the things that we are doing so that you can apply this technique in your mapping using the target and source in your own mapping tasks. (more…)

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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