All together now

In an age of empowered customers, who expect virtually unlimited access to information they can instantly share internally and externally, UK manufacturers are struggling to keep up. That was chief among the findings of IBM's 2012 Global Value Chain Synchronisation survey (among 700 organisations having more than 1,000 employees), which suggests that currently lacklustre collaboration across supply chains is harming businesses. Big Blue notes that, while 79% of study respondents say the business community has an impact on their companies' ability to respond to customers, only 10% have effected end-to-end integration with business partners. That's worrying, particularly when set against the global picture. For example, whereas only 5% of UK firms rate themselves as 'very effective' at collaborating with their supply chains, the average globally is 23%. Similarly, while just 9% of UK manufacturers say they can respond 'very efficiently' to customers, the worldwide mean is again 23%. For IBM, the conclusion is that management teams need to wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to understanding the importance of their business communities. They must be able to connect with all relevant parties, if they are to reach their full potential. However, for that to happen, those same management teams also need to comprehend the issues when it comes to effecting the integration required. And that's certainly not only externally; it's also internally. Manufacturers need to link their own, invariably heterogeneous, business and manufacturing systems. It's time to kiss goodbye to the usual batch reports, scripts and workarounds. So what exactly are you likely to be up against? Everyone agrees it's easier, and far less expensive, than it used to be, but what does that mean? For Dan Matthews, chief technology officer at global ERP player IFS, the salient point is that, while integration is not quite the big deal it used to be, that bland statement masks a challenge. "Half the problem is gone," he explains, "but unfortunately it's the least difficult half. If you look back, say, 10 years, there were two issues: the technical stuff, meaning the protocols, data formats, handshaking, authentication, etc; and the content and how business processes should be integrated... "Today, the first part has gone away: as long as you have modern systems – not legacy systems with cryptic databases – you don't have to worry about data protocols. SOAP [simple object access protocol], REST [representational state transfer], XML [extensible markup language], HTTP [hypertext transfer protocol], etc, have made it all 'plug and play'. But while that means systems can talk to one another more easily, the remaining issue is what shared data are they going to talk about." Matthews recalls that when the data objects and then web services movements started, the great white hope was that business processes, too, would become common, or at least modular. But experience has proved otherwise – partly because it's inherently more complex than people believed, but also because of differences between sectors, competitive interests and the realities of continuously evolving business. "So there are pockets of common processes, for example, in the automotive sector. They tend to have a higher degree of standardisation around aspects, such as production planning and reporting. But outside these ecosystems it's not happening," states Matthews. That said, he concedes that the current era of integration platforms, both generic and company specific, do make life easier, at least in terms of exposing data and taking connections closer to the business process level. He warns that users shouldn't be fooled into believing that the design effort will be zero, and insists that there are limits – for example, when it comes to jumping on the social media bandwagon. However, he accepts that embedded functionality does make a difference. He's not alone. Adrian Simpson, SAP's chief innovation officer in the UK, also speaks of the power of what amounts to generalised middleware to extend business processes beyond the usual application boundaries. "You can buy off-the-shelf software, for example, and extend it to suit you, adapting business processes and putting in the integration without too much difficulty," he advises. His point: integration platforms reduce the risk and cost of development, and also ensure more robust and better operations. "Middleware was a methodology – messaging from one point to another. Integration platforms cover business processes, user interfaces, collaboration and reporting." Phil Lewis, business consulting director at Infor, agrees. Citing his company's latest Infor ION middleware, he says that what's fundamental to this new platform for integration is its basis in the OAGIS (open applications group integration specification) standards, as also used by Oracle, Salesforce.com and others. "But it's not just about connecting OAGIS-compliant APIs [application programming interfaces]," says Lewis. "ION was designed from the ground up also to accommodate legacy systems via generic technology connectors – that connect to ASCII text, comma delimited files, fixed length file types, etc – as well as database connectors that link to most relational databases. So we can use the platform to expose much older applications, too, mapping them to XML to persist that information over the ION architecture to other systems." He also argues that Infor's platform helps business analysts to move up a level, suggesting that it makes business process connections visual. "Part of ION is called ION Process, and that's about automating and supporting cross-application business processes," explains Lewis. "It's aimed at the vast majority of manufacturers that use multiple applications, so had to run their businesses with what amount to disconnected business processes. With ION Process, they can now see these processes and their related decision tree structures, and design their integrations graphically." As all this matures, manufacturers that get on board will benefit. Those that do not are likely to be left behind. Why? Not least because integrated business processes across applications, using live data from whatever source, mean that real-time information drives everything – from sales to production to management decisions. And this level of integration also changes the nature of workflow. As Lewis puts it: "Workflow has been around for years, but the problem has been that ERP, warehousing and maintenance, for example, have run their own workflows." Knitting these together provides for efficiency improvements and a route to new opportunities – and competitive advantage. Richard Brown, operations director at Waterlooville, Hampshire-based plastic injection mouldings manufacturer Hi-Tech Mouldings, says it works. He describes his firm's system environment as including Infor Visual ERP, but also separate systems for accounting (Sage) and staff (Simply Personnel), none of which talked to one another. "We believe ERP produces a lot of data that often remains dormant, so we've pushed our Visual system very hard, putting in business intelligence, for example. But we had to use SQL and write scripts to get the information out for managers and customers," explains Brown. With the arrival of Infor ION, he says, all that has changed. "ION provides for seamless integration. It can pull together data from multiple sources, so it can deliver what we need for reporting and analysis, without the scripting work." He also expects it finally to pull Hi-Tech's other systems together – and to give new momentum to the company's existing mobility system, which provides real-time information at customer meetings. "This is a new world, in terms of connectivity and communications. We're streamlining the business and that will improve our performance and competitiveness. The point is you're only as good as your latest data: no one can afford to be making decisions based on historical data from separate systems. It's tough in the business world and this is about the survival of the fittest."