6.2 Intra-enterprise scenarios

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6.2 Intra-enterprise scenarios

In the first phase of implementation, ABC Electronics wants to integrate their retail and wholesale departments. Currently, both organizations have proven IT infrastructures but have no interconnectivity. The first process ABC Electronics wants to focus on is the inventory and order replenishment process. Currently, the items sold are tallied at the end of the month by the retail ordering process and delivered to the wholesale organization by internal mail. This creates a lag in the inventory replenishment process and causes many out of stock situations. A primary business goal is to minimize the loss of sales due to items being out of stock.

Selecting a Business/Integration pattern

In 3.2.1, "Business and IT drivers" on page 35, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Application Integration pattern:

• The business processes need to be integrated with existing business systems and information.

• The business activity needs to aggregate, organize and present information from various sources within the organization.

Both drivers apply to ABC Electronics. The business processes of the retail department and the wholesale department need to be integrated by integrating the existing retail business system with the existing wholesale business system. The pattern would integrate the retail order information with the wholesale inventory information, eliminating the lag and providing an up-to-date inventory.

The Application Integration pattern can be applied in our intra-enterprise scenarios, as shown in Figure 6-3.

Figure 6-3: ABC Electronics- Stage I and II architecture overview diagram

6.2.1 Stage I: Internal delivery date on demand

In the first stage of the internal implementation, ABC Electronics wants to integrate the Retail system and the Wholesale system.

The Retail departments currently keep commonly requested replacement parts in stock. To replenish this stock when it gets low, the Retail department must determine which Wholesale departments carry the needed parts and which of these can supply the part the quickest, then order the part via phone or fax.

In this stage of integrating the Retail and Wholesale departments, the goal is to automate the process of determining which Wholesale department can supply a part the quickest.

For Stage I of our business scenario, we can identify two actors:

• The retail system

• The wholesale system

We can also identify a use case:

• Get delivery date

Actors

Table 6-1 provides details on the retail system actor, and Table 6-2 provides details on the wholesale system actor.

Table 6-1: Retail system actor details

Actor name	Retail system
Brief description	The retail system implements the retail ordering business process
Status	Primary
Relationships	001 Get Delivery Date
Associations to use cases

Table 6-2: Wholesale system actor details

Actor name	Wholesale system
Brief description	The wholesale system implements the wholesale inventory management business process
Status	Primary
Relationships
Associations to use cases

Use case 001: Get delivery date

Table 6-3 provides details on the update inventory use case.

Table 6-3: Use case 001: Update inventory

Use case name	001 Get delivery date.
Subject area	Wholesale ordering.
Business event	A Wholesale supplier and delivery date for an item out of stock with the retail division needs to be obtained from the wholesale system.
Actors	Retail system, Wholesale system.
Use case overview	The Retail system requests a delivery date for a part. A router determines which Wholesale system supplies the part and forwards the request to it. The Wholesale system returns the delivery date.
Preconditions	The Retail system supplies a part number for the item to be ordered.
Termination outcome 1	The Wholesale system returns the delivery date of the part.

The Stage I use case model is shown in Figure 6-4.

Figure 6-4: Stage I use case model

Selecting an Application pattern

In Table 3-1 on page 41 and Table 3-2 on page 42, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Router variation of the Application Integration::Broker application pattern:

• Improve the organizational efficiency

• Reduce the latency of business events

• Support a structured exchange within the organization

• Support real-time one-way message flows

• Support real-time request/reply message flows

• Support dynamic routing of messages to one of many target applications

• Minimize total cost of ownership

• Leverage existing skills

• Leverage the legacy investment

• Enable back-end application integration

• Minimize application complexity

• Minimize enterprise complexity

• Improve maintainability

Because we require a solution that includes numerous Wholesale applications, these drivers are a good match for the Stage I scenario. By loosely coupling the Retail and Wholesale applications, we are minimizing the need to alter these applications for integration with other applications. The maintenance required to connecting systems when changes occur is also minimized. In addition, we are facilitating future connectivity to these systems by external applications.

6.2.2 Stage II: Internal Get earliest delivery date on demand

In the second stage of the internal implementation, ABC Electronics wants to further enhance the process of getting delivery dates by allowing "parts shopping". In the event that a part can be supplied by multiple Wholesale departments, the application should be able to determine which Wholesale department can supply the part at the earliest date.

To improve customer service, the Retail department wants to be able to quickly provide their customers with the earliest expected delivery date for items that are not in stock with the Retail department.

For Stage II of our business scenario we identify an additional use case:

• Get earliest delivery date

Use case 002: Get earliest delivery date

Table 6-3 provides details on the Get delivery date use case.

Table 6-4: Use case 002: Get delivery date

Use case name	002 Get earliest delivery date.
Subject area	Wholesale ordering.
Business event	A delivery date for an item out of stock with the retail division needs to be obtained from the wholesale system.
Actors	Retail system, Wholesale system.
Use case overview	The Retail system requests a delivery date for a part. A broker determines which Wholesale systems can supply the part and forwards the request to them. The Wholesale system returns the delivery date to the broker, which determines the earliest date the part can be supplied. This date and the Wholesale department name is returned to the Retail system.
Preconditions	The retail system supplies a part number for the out of stock item.
Termination outcome 1	Each Wholesale system returns the delivery date of the part to the broker, which determines the earliest date and returns it to the user.

The Stage II use case model is shown in Figure 6-5.

Figure 6-5: Stage II use case model

Selecting an Application pattern

In Table 3-1 on page 41 and Table 3-2 on page 42, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Application Integration::Broker application pattern:

• Improve the organizational efficiency

• Reduce the latency of business events

• Support a structured exchange within the organization

• Support real-time one-way message flows

• Support real-time request/reply message flows

• Support dynamic routing of messages to one of many target applications

• Support dynamic distribution of messages to multiple targets

• Minimize total cost of ownership

• Leverage existing skills

• Leverage the legacy investment

• Enable back-end application integration

• Minimize application complexity

• Minimize enterprise complexity

• Improve maintainability

This use case has the same requirements as use case 001 and the same drivers. In addition, this use case has introduces the need to poll multiple Wholesale departments for a delivery date. The key driver here is the ability to support dynamic distribution of messages to multiple targets.

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