Manufacturing Executive - March/April 2009 - (Page 45) In a recent Burton Group sales management, so it took study of about two-dozen a lot of testing to understand Fortune 1,000 companies that how Web standards, such soa slow to catch on A 2008 Gartner survey shows that enterprise SOA rolled out projects based on as XML, would work with adoption is not universal. It is stronger in Europe, SOA technology, fully 50% of Mazda’s systems. moderate in North America, and lagging in Asia. the deployments were deemed The approach that Mazda Overall adoption is expected to slow significantly complete failures. Another took started with policies and due to tighter economic conditions worldwide. The industries with the highest percentage of organisa30% were considered neither data governance. Rather than tions not pursuing SOA — with no plans to — are in successes nor failures, which developing the SOA infragovernment and manufacturing, the report said. leaves 20% of the companies structure first, the company actually succeeding because layered an XML gateway apWhy doesn’t your organisation plan to implement SOA in the next 12 months? they were able to pull value out pliance from Vordel Limited Lack of internal expertise of their first-generation SOA onto its network and estab60% deployments. lished policies for how Web “Projects that failed had little services would be created, No perceived business value in SOA implementation 50% or no measure of what they changed, and reused. The delivered,” Watson says. “Their appliance frees the comLack of skill sets 48% biggest challenge was getting pany’s existing servers from business to adopt the services having to do the heavy lifting Cost and/or resources required to implement SOA 44% built on the infrastructure.” of parsing, validating, and So, SOA is no field of transforming XML messages Lack of organisational buy-in 40% dreams. If you build it, they as they come in from dealers. will not necessarily come. Mazda is using the XML SOA is a relatively new concept; waiting to see more industry justifications That’s why, experts say, in gateway to avoid duplicating 40% the second wave of SOA effort, which wastes time and SOA is seen as too complex deployments, business process could introduce data error. 23% management (BPM) technolWhen exchanging informaogy will be key to making tion with dealers on vehicle Do not have the need 13% SOA more useful. So will sales and reservations, those governance policies that manubusiness transactions need to Don’t know 6% facturers can use to manage be recorded in two separate Source: Gartner Inc., September 2008 and change Web services in a systems. Using XML B2B productive way. Web services, sale and cusIn addition, as always, it’s best to start small. tomer reservation transactions are entered only once, “What we’ve found over the last few years is that orand data, including model and pricing information, ganisations in all sectors are taking a more pragmatic is updated in the appropriate systems. Additional approach to SOA,” says Vic Morris, CEO of Vordel. transactions are planned in the future, Ballingall “Rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper and says, including more vehicle detail, such as wara huge SOA for all applications, they are solving ranty, service, and customer information, all of which specific business [needs] one by one.” traditionally would require a dealer to access separate Even when starting small, manufacturers should Mazda Australia systems. first make sure a common data structure is in place. By all accounts, the project has been a success. “A Beckman Coulter is using TIBCO SOA technology good gauge of effectiveness is how well the technolto build interfaces between Oracle ERP modules and ogy aligns to the strategic business objectives,” Balllegacy systems that came to the company as part of a ingall says. “We could achieve our aims with other business acquisition. TIBCO contains Web services technologies as long as we remained committed to that enable 99% reusability of integration services. the B2B strategy. SOA and XML gateways, however, Rather than customising each application interface, enabled this strategy to be deployed much easier in Web services use common data elements that streamour environment.” line the integration process, says Tony Giang, group If SOA is done right, deployment can, indeed, be manager of application services in Beckman Coulter’s relatively easy. But most companies move ahead Integrated Business Solutions group. without fully understanding the underlying technolThis commonality and interface reusability have ogy or the business reasons behind the deployment. resulted in an ROI success story at Beckman Coulter. It’s a recipe for disaster. Manufacturing MAR/APR-09 Executive progress report 45
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