Case Study: E2open. B2B Integration and Process

Transcription

1 Case Study: E2open B2B Integration and Process Ronald Schmelzer Senior Analyst ZapThink. LLC Introduction Who is E2open? Worldwide B2B Supply Chain Network Member companies include: Acer, Hitachi, IBM, LG Electronics, Lucent Technologies, Matsushita Electronic (Panasonic), Nortel Networks, Seagate Technology, Solectron, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electronic, Omron, Ricoh, Sanyo, and Sharp What problem are they solving How to efficiently connect companies in a supply chain and connect cross-company industry process 1

2 Framing the Problem Pressures on high-tech manufacturing companies: Outsourcing (reduce cost) Globalization (increase supply) Time-to-market (reduce time) Just-in-time manufacturing (reduce inventory) Distributed value chain (satisfy customer) Resulting in IT Challenges Integrating across multiple companies Long-lived, multi-step, complex processes Automating manual processes Business semantic issues Typical Supply Chain North American PC Manufacturer forecasts, manufacturing capacity, inventory and order data European Contract Electronics Manufacturer planning, inventory, order data Engineering, product, forecasts, data Tier 2 Supplier forecasts and order data Strategic Southeast Asian Tier 1 Supplier Integrated and synchronized inter-company business processes 2

3 Solution Attempts EDI Rigid file format definition lack of agreement Aging Technology Industry and Versioning Issues COST $$$$ EDI software: translators, mappers Value-Added Networks (VANs) XML-ized EDI New technology, same connection and semantics problems XML-based vocabularies Solves only some semantics problems Not connection problems, however Solution Framework Create standards-based collaboration framework leveraging process: B2B process transformation Create external process interfaces at supplier and manufacturer Create a framework by which these processes can be synchronized Standards-based technology infrastructure Use industry standard vocabularies (RosettaNet, etc.) Use standard transport protocols (HTTP, SMTP) Use Registry (UDDI) to decouple the end points 3

4 E2open Solution Suppliers Customers Core Processes Applications Gateway Gateway Core Processes Applications PLM, SCM, SRM, CRM Processes Any-to-Any Network capability Integration into systems of record Single point of connection and aggregation Support for multiple process and protocols Global Network coverage E2open Solution Details E2PD (UDDI) Private App Process Integrator Inter-Company Backplane Bus Ptnr App Private Channel Private Channel E2open Network firewall firewall 4

5 Network Directory E2open Network Directory Process Directory (UDDI-based) Model & enforce business processes for trading partners Name: Company XYZ DUN #: Address: 1234 UDDI Dr., Anytown, CA Products/Services supplied: standardized by category Business Processes: ECx RFQ Process Template: 4 Step PIP3A Standard: RosettaNet URL: /pip.wsdl User Directory (LDAP) Manage & provision users for the E2open community Company BU-A User 1 BU Admin User 3 Company Admin BP - A User 5 BP Admin Platform Security Topology E2open Hub DMZ Internal Internet request Web Services Gateway Authentication & Policy Enforcement authentication coarse-grained authorization proxied request User LDAP Authentication Registry Policy Manager Policy Decision Point Application fine-grained authorization 5

6 Cross-Domain Single Sign-on (CDSSO) E2open Customer Intranet DMZ Internet DMZ E2open Intranet access Customer app Web Agent Customer authentication software redirect #2 redirect #1 SM cookie SAML Artifact WA EdgeBox Redirector CDAA compare & update LDAP Cache attribute artifact information X.509 cert proves EdgeBox identity Web Gateway update Hosted Application update E2RS Policy Manager LDAP LDAP Customer Example: Acer Company In the top 10 of Personal Computer manufacturers Annual chip purchases > $700 million Challenge Submitting supply forecasts 4-5 months in advance Suppliers slow to respond Result: forecasts that didn t match sales, inventory problems 6

7 Results: Acer Forecast-to-order in real-time Reduced inventory dramatically Reduced cost of adding new suppliers Increased ability to negotiate new supplier relationships Customer Example: LG Electronics Company One of the largest electronics companies in Korea Challenge Wanted faster, more efficient way for collaborative product development Wanted real-time visibility into project status Communication and planning problems lead to product release delays, impacting revenue 7

8 Results: LG Electronics Solution: collaborative process design using integrated B2B processes Results Development project that usually took 2 weeks took 4 hours One project showed design time reduced from 53 days to 20 days Meetings in real-time Travel costs reduced by tens of thousands of dollars Now capable of extending product design process to third-parties Customer Adoption Solution Deployment Example Network for unstructured data Product Collaboration enterprise-wide integrated to systems of record Product Collaboration pilot projects Seagate IBM, Hitachi, Omron, Toshiba Network for structured data Application integration and management Network Hub to support connection to many business partners Network Spokes business partner connecting to an existing hub Commerce Collaboration - shared service Supply Chain Collaboration - dedicated service Acer s Wistron, Solectron, Seagate, Major US OEM ExceLight (connecting to a major OEM s ehub) IBM, Hitachi, Omron, major telecom OEM Solectron 8

9 Lessons Learned Web Services over the Internet is Viable -- Today B2B Integration is about: Choreographing processes Agreeing on business semantics Handling security and reliability issues Making deployment easy We don t have to repeat the mistakes of the EDI past Questions & Discussion 9