Section 8.5. ESA in action: CSA International


8.5. ESA in action: CSA International

CSA International is a leading provider of product testing and certification services for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, gas, and a variety of other products. Recognized in the United States, Canada, and around the world, CSA International certification marks appear on billions of products worldwide.

CSA International is a division of CSA Group, an independent, not-for-profit membership association serving business, industry, government, and consumers. CSA Group employs more than 1,200 people across North America and has international offices in India, China, and the Netherlands. In addition to CSA International, CSA Group consists of three divisions: the Canadian Standards Association, a solutions-based standards organization providing standards development, application products, training, and advisory services; QMI for management systems registration; and OnSpeX, a provider of consumer product testing, inspections, and advisory services for retailers and manufacturers.

As an increasingly global player, CSA International faces a growing competitive environment in both its traditional and emerging markets. CSA International recognized early on that in a globally competitive arena, service and speed would be key differentiators.

To that end, CSA International has embraced ESA as a means for accelerating its internal processes and publishing its final reports. The organization intends to wholeheartedly embrace enterprise services in its next upgrade cycle to mySAP ERP 2005, the next iteration of SAP NetWeaver, and Documentum 5.3, all of which are slated to include features provided as enterprise services, more advanced modeling tools, and a fully functioning Enterprise Services Repository.

In advance of these upgrades, CSA International has already mapped its business processes to spot inefficiencies in its certification processes and plans to leverage ESA to service-enable these processes and continue to build on its client- and employee-focused portals for accessing documents. Services will take the form of previously existing functionality recast in easier-to-use interfaces and more efficient incarnations, streamlining how clients conduct business with CSA International in a global marketplace.

A number of service components have already been developed in support of this vision and are in use today. For example, a service-enabled version of a third-party DRM application CSA International has used to secure its PDF documents can now be easily extended to help ensure that client information remains secure when distributed globally via the Web. Service-enabling a "shopping cart" traditionally available within CSA's Online Store (http://www.shopcsa.ca) paves the way for extending online purchase of services across CSA Group's different lines of business. Additionally, reusable UI services are starting to be developed that hold the promise to compose applications that both speed application deployment and maintain the look, feel, and usability of electronic service offerings for clients and process-oriented portal workspaces for employees.




Enterprise SOA. Designing IT for Business Innovation
Enterprise SOA: Designing IT for Business Innovation
ISBN: 0596102380
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 265

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