Realization Of Supply Chain Reference Architecture

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2017ISSN 2250-3153633Realization of Supply Chain Reference ArchitectureEugene Moses R, CPIM, TOGAF, Gururaman SubramanianOracle Solution Services India (SSI) Pvt Ltd., Bangalore, Karnataka, IndiaAbstract— In today’s global economy, businesses collaborateacross multiple organizations that include customers andvendors in multiple geographies due to business growth andmergers and acquisitions. In general, larger companies have agreater number of systems with an average of 3.5 ordercapture and 3.3 order fulfillment systems [1]. This has led to asystem landscape where there are multiple softwareapplications that are implemented to serve both standard andcustomer specific business processes for a specificorganization. This necessitates organization to embark uponthe practice of Enterprise Architecture (EA) to organize thelogic for business process and IT infrastructure reflecting theintegration and standardization requirement of company’soperating model. [2]However, there is a gap between the architecture and thesolution domain. This paper explores how this gap can bebridged using right tools & techniques, a shared meta-datamodel and realize the architecture by orchestrating thesolution based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Thispaper also explains how this approach enables the business torealize supply chain reference architecture like ablesorganization to adopt industry standard supply chain referencearchitecture with the benefit of monitoring the performancemetrics.using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to realize thebusiness processes. This allows the system to natively supportcollaboration as these are built on business processes ratherthan silo system processes.II. NEED OF ORCHESTRATIONThe following are the characteristics of a modern ERPsystem that enables realization of industry standard supplychain processes through orchestration: Multiple company Business process Multiple Enterprise Visibility Business rule driven Strong collaboration tools. Highly flexible and agile. Users should be able to see information frommultiple sources and be able torespond to eventsacross those sources.Keywords—Supply chain reference architecture, SCOR,Orchestration, Service Oriented ArchitectureI. INTRODUCTIONTraditionally companies were focused only on oneorganization where each function had its own source of dataand systems – either off-line spreadsheets or an ERP system.Traditional ERP systems started facilitating collaboration at atransaction and operations level. However, these systemsproved inadequate due to their tight integration of underlyingsystem process and silo system processes are connected torealize the organization specific business processes instead oftop-down approach. Collaboration has become a necessity asbusinesses started sourcing components from vendors oroutsourcing some operations to vendors.The modern virtual enterprises work on BoundarylessInformation Flow [3] across multiple organizations thatextends to customers and vendors. Modern ERP serving thesevirtual enterprises need to be built on top down architecturewhere the industry standard business processes are realized byapplication services encapsulating the system processes andsupport, round tripping between business and IT. This isachieved by orchestrating loosely coupled application servicesFig. 1 Modern ERP platformOrchestration realizes the virtual enterprise value chain bya system designed to operate in a virtual way using SOA. Itenables users to manage the processes and the stake holdersacross different organizations in a uniform way to deliver aconsistent user experience while operating over heterogeneous,virtual enterprises.Orchestration enables building a composite applicationbusiness process for a set of interacting services, not just bybespoke development, but using a composition or businessprocess modelling language, such as Business ProcessExecution Language (BPEL) of information and controlthrough the individual services. Thus, the design anddevelopment of services is agile, and may be performed bydevelopers under the close guidance of business analysts. [4]III. ROLE OF REFERENCE ARCHITECTUREwww.ijsrp.org

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2017ISSN 2250-3153Enterprise, as part of architectural continuum adopts thebest practices and architectural style of Reference architecturespecific to their industry which governs solution beingrealized.634Below are the challenges in adopting the IndustryReference Architectures to an enterprise’s own OrganizationSpecific Architectures that govern the solution being realized.1) Architecture model address what are the bestpractices for a process where as the solution modeladdresses how to implement process.2) Architecture model are efficient at Strategic levelwhereas solution model is efficient at tactical level.3) Architecture and solution modeling languages are notcommon.4) Meta-data model not shared between Architectureand Solution modeling tools.Reference architecture is general in nature to some level ofabstraction and provides concepts, components and theirrelationship used to direct/guide and constrain theinstantiation of (repeated) concrete solutions. [5]The above reasons lead to a gap between the Architectureand Solution being realized during implementation.Fig. 2 Enterprise ContinuumBelow are the leading Supply chain Reference Architecturein the market:TABLE 1: SUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCE ARCHITECTURESCORVRMAPQC-PCFSupply-chain operations reference-model(SCOR) is a process reference model for supplychain management. This supply chain frameworklinks business processes, performance metrics,practices and people skills into a unifiedstructure. The SCOR describes supply chainsusing process modeling building blocks andcontains more than 150 key indicators thatmeasure the performance of supply chainoperations.Value Reference Model (VRM) is a unifiedreference model covers the entire enterprise:Corporate, Product Supply and Customerdomains supported by an extensive list ofInput/Outputs, Metrics and Practices.Process Classification Framework (PCF) is ahigh-level, industry-neutral enterprise processmodel that allows organizations to see theirbusiness processes from a cross-industryviewpoint. The PCF organizes operations andmanagement processes into 12 enterprise-levelcategories, including process groups, and over1,000 processes and associated activities.V. PROPOSED MODEL TO REALIZE SUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCEARCHITECTUREA solution to the above challenges is to bridge the gapbetween the architecture and solution domain using right tools& techniques, a shared meta-data model and realize thearchitecture by orchestrating the solution based on ServiceOriented Architecture (SOA).Supply chain Reference Architecture can be classifiedbased on their meta-data model level of details and entity theyrepresent and relationship between them as follows: TABLE 2: SUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE ediumTacticalBusinessProcessLowOperationalPhysical ProcessTABLE 3: SUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE ENTITYTYPE [6]No12ConceptualOwners ViewModels of ers ViewModels oftheSystemTechnologyConstrainedModelBelow is the model to select fit for purpose tools & techniqueappropriate to realize the supply chain reference Architecturebased on their meta-data model level & entity: -IV. CHALLENGES IN REALIZING SUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCEARCHITECTUREwww.ijsrp.org

International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 7, Issue 8, August 2017ISSN 2250-3153635chain to reuse the build blocks namely plan, source, make,deliver and return with further drill down based on thelevel.Fig. 3 Proposed Model to realize Supply Chain ReferenceArchitectureFig. 3 shows the proposed model to realize the Supplychain Reference Architecture by mapping the right tools andtechniques based on their metadata level and entity.Below table provide the details of tools and technique forthe combination of Supply chain Reference Architecture leveland entity.TABLE 4: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE FOR COMBINATION OFSUPPLY CHAIN REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE LEVEL AND ENTITYLevel otationBPASuiteBusinessArchitecture &Business ProcessAnalysis (BPA)BusinessMotivationModel (BMM),Strategy Map,Value ChainBusiness ProcessModellingNotation(BPMN)Business iteBusiness ProcessModelling(BPM)C3LowPhysicalSOASuiteBusiness ProcessOrchestrationA. Applying proposed model to SCORSupply-chain operations reference-model (SCOR) is theindustry leading architecture reference model for supplyFig. 4 Supply-chain operations reference-modelSCOR reference architecture meta-data model level can bemapped to proposed model as follows:TABLE 5: MAPPING OF SCOR META DATA MODELSCORLevel–Entity1234Proposed Model sicalTop tionLevel(decomposeprocesselement)Below diagram depict the fit for purpose tools and techniquesby applying the suggested model to realize the SCORreference architecture.www.ijsrp.org