Getting to Virtual Manufacturing With SOA: Part 3

Solution design

You'll recall we described a virtual enterprise as one built on a foundation of business and technical isolation plus information standards. To enable the outsourcing of back-end manufacturing, we first addressed the technical isolation characteristic to support physical separation of business entities (IBM and supplier) with proper integration. A bundled collection of components, services and middleware, known as the multi-source data integrator (MDI), was deployed at each manufacturing location plus centrally at IBM. The MDI serves as the entry point for data from manufacturing, and it is the implementation of an enterprise service bus (ESB) for rules-based routing of transactions, bulk data and events. A web application server in the MDI is used to host callable SOA services that tailor specific manufacturing sites to meet IBM requirements.

The MDI serves as the platform for the second foundation element — information standards. RosettaNet standard interface transactions, where available, are used to integrate the local manufacturing systems to the MDI. RosettaNet transactions in use include 7B5 (start to build), 7B1 (work in progress, WIP), 3B2 (advanced ship notice) and 7C7 (semiconductor test data exchange). Custom XML-based integration is the alternative if RosettaNet is not enabled.

Once properly integrated via the MDIs, the various manufacturing assets are coordinated by the enterprise business backbone (EBB). This is an enhanced instance of a manufacturing execution system (MES) that maintains the end-to-end view of product manufacturing, independent of the specific IBM or supplier assets in use. The EBB is the mechanism by which all product start events from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system are passed to the appropriate manufacturing execution environment. It is also the "bus" on which product WIP updates are gathered, enabling it as the "trusted source" for WIP status to the enterprise. This has greatly reduced the complexities of plant floor-to-enterprise integration.

With the means for technical isolation in place, we then moved to establish a degree of business isolation. This has meant first understanding business process interdependencies, which is accomplished by creating a business process model. Use of the model to identify the process dependency points has enabled us to properly segment the business to enable manufacturing outsourcing. In addition, the model has helped us to better divide the business into domains — collections of related business processes, applications and data. We have imposed on each domain a requirement that they establish a single interface point and mechanism to/from the ESB. This helps minimize dependencies between domains, reducing the complexity of multiple interfaces and reinforcing the theme of business isolation.

Analysis to date has helped define our basic set of domains. The list includes familiar subject areas such as CRM, ERP, SCM, PLM, finance and manufacturing, plus some less familiar ones such as release, engineering analysis and e-business. The manufacturing domain is further refined to reflect the specializations for mask, wafer fab, wafer finish/test, and package assembly/test. Further refinement of domain content is ongoing, as we gain experience in process modeling and identification of domain content and boundaries, as well as future business requirements.

Solution benefits

The business benefits of virtualization are many and far-reaching. Three significant areas of experience in IBM to date are described below:

• Business configuration: Together, the MDI and EBB have provided a measurable reduction in the time/cost/risk to integrate new suppliers. In addition, they have improved the speed and simplification of divestitures.
• Business operations: Significant business streamlining has been enabled, including a reduction of in-process inventory stocking points and their associated overhead, and the enablement of a single worldwide end-to-end support team.
• Business strategy: Establishment of the strategic "trusted source" for WIP data lays a foundation for significant business transformation at the enterprise level in areas such as enterprise-wide supply/demand management and order fulfillment.

For more information on "virtual" manufacturing and service-oriented architectures, the authors can be reached at the following:

Karl Gartland: kgartlan@us.ibm.com

Mike Maslack: mmaslack@us.ibm.com