In the previous blog series, I have discussed James Staten’s 2013 predictions, made in Forbes.com in the context of ‘Agility to ERP’. I was delighted to see many views on the blog posts.
In the next blog series, I would like to discuss the influence of domain meta models on the future of Back Office (process) applications in a series of blogs. This includes:
- How Cordys Business Operations Platform (BOP) supports Argility in implementing the ARTS Model for Commerce solutions
- The importance of Customer Order Decoupling Point (to what extent does an organization influence) and the impact on Information models
- Software trends transitioning from the Departmental applications towards the Enterprise-wide applications and towards the Business Service applications that are centered around a domain (CRM, HR, Finance, Commerce, etc)
- What makes a domain model so appealing?
- The Cordys approach.
In this blog, let us look at the first element as to how Cordys Business Operations Platform (BOP) supports Argility in implementing the ARTS Model for Commerce solutions.
Cordys’ partner Argility delivers a Commerce solution for Retail operations which is also suitable for other industries as it is based on the Cordys BOP platform. Their solution portfolio is on an expansion spree with new Commerce modules. There are two things that intrigued me in their approach to building the solution. One is the use of the ARTS model and the other is the platform approach of Argility’s Commerce Solution Platform. I would like to dwell a little on both these approaches.
Let’s look at the first approach, which involves using the ARTS Model for building the solution. The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) is an international standards organization dedicated to reducing the costs of technology through standards. Since 1993, ARTS has been delivering application standards exclusively to the retail industry.
Argility Commerce Framework has a complete Retail Specific Data Structure that is validated across the retail sector. The data structure conforms to the ARTS Data Model, which is a widely acknowledged standard in the industry. ARTS Data Model is an enabler for Integration, Master Data Management and Transactional Processes. The comprehensive nature of all master records facilitates a swift migration to a single view of the enterprise and implementation of Master Data Management.
As you can see, all the aspects of Commerce are covered in the solution offered by Argility to optimize your commerce operation. The team has efficiently used the ARTS Data Model to create an Industry standards based solution. This provides a great advantage to the users of this system as it has Integration, (master) Data definitions and Processes according to the required specifications.
What’s good about this model is that it is thought out properly by the experts of the Retail industry. This Commerce model is in contrast to the ERP systems approach.
ERP systems combine the meta models of many industries into one system. This creates confusion when you are implementing, customizing and deploying those systems to make them fit for use by your business operations. With the adoption of ARTS by Argility, I see an early bird making a breach in the ‘normal’ approach by adopting an Industry model in all aspects of system design. I see a great opportunity for many more Industries. Other models that are very promising to be used in Cordys-based Process applications are:
- SCOR (Supply Chain domain)
- VRM (Manufacturing domain)
- BIAN (Banking domain)
- eTOM (Telecommunication domain)
- ACORD (Insurance domain)
Now, we will focus a little more on the ARTS Data Model.
The ARTS Model has four standards:
- The Standard Relational Data Model
- The ARTS Operational Data Model and the ARTS Data Warehouse Model provide retailers and vendors a mature foundation for developing retail business solutions.
- The ARTS Operational Data Model represents a relational transaction-oriented view of the retail enterprise data. It is normalized and designed to support the day-to-day transactional functions performed by a retail enterprise.
- The ARTS Data Warehouse Model (DWM) supports business reporting and analysis. The DWM is designed around a star schema approach that supports end-user data query, reporting and analysis.
- UnifiedPOS
- UnifiedPOS is the acronym for Unified Point of Service and version 1.13 is the current standard. It is an architectural specification for application interfaces to point-of-service devices that are used in the retail environment. This standard, which has been in existence for several years, is both operating system-independent and language neutral.
- ARTS XML
- ARTS XML has developed numerous standard xml schemas. ARTS XML builds on the ARTS Data Model to develop standard XML schemas and message sets to ease Application to Application (A to A) integration within a retail enterprise.
- ARTS Business Process Modeling
- When retailers set out to define their business strategy, at the most basic level they decide on what they want to sell and to whom they wish to sell it. At the end of the day, they need to be able to execute their strategy better than their competitors.
- Business Process Modeling (BPM) is about how a retailer chooses to do business, and it’s a tool that can help you identify strengths and weaknesses in how you manage your business and your strategy.
It is a division of the National Retail Federation. These standards enable the rapid implementation of technology within the retail industry by developing standards to ease integration of software applications and hardware devices.
Many leading retailers and vendors worldwide contribute in shaping the ARTS Data Model. The ARTS Data Model is known as the information standard in the retail industry and provides a comprehensive design document containing all data elements and definitions required to support retail applications.
Schematic overview of The ARTS Standard Relational Data Model:
The ARTS community is working right now on the aspects of Process definitions. At the highest level, i.e., Level 0, the Retail Reference Model provides a collection of domain areas and capabilities to describe the retail enterprise as a whole. The Retail Reference Model is divided into several domains:
- Serve Customers
- Operate Channels & Shopping Experience
- Market Goods/Services
- Manage Merchandising
- Manage Supply Chain
- Source Goods/Services
- Support Enterprise
In future releases, ARTS will start populating Level 2, Logical Business Processes, that take each of the groups identified in Level 1 and provides presentation of the logical part of these end-to-end business processes. Level3, the Physical Business Processes, represents the activities and tasks that are executed by an actor and system to complete a process defined in Level 2.
The overview of The ARTS Business Process Modeling is modeled in the Cordys VDML business modeling technology, using the Capability library designer. My friend,Fred Cummens, has written many posts about the Agile Enterprise and VDML. VDML is an active OMG project for standardization. My colleague, Henk de Man, is one of the main contributors to this specification; he is working very close with Fred Cummens, Arne Berre and many others to get this new innovation ready for our Industry. For this project, we got the support of the European Commission and worked very close with other partners in a joint project called Neffics. Have a look at their website as well.
What does all this mean to you?
When you need a Commerce Solution, there is one available that is based on an ARTS model-driven approach. That means it is ready to participate in your business and IT ecosystem. It also means that you benefit from the work of all smart Retail domain architects that have created the ARTS meta model and you continue to do so with new updates.
Industrialization of domain knowledge by productizing this Commerce Solution, is getting to the next level to accelerate adoption of best practices that will result in a better operation.What has been done with the ARTS meta model, can be done with other domain models as well.
I’m looking forward to talk to innovative ISVs that would like to take this new challenge forward! In my next blog, I would like to dig deeper into the influence of domain models.
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