Operational Intelligence

OrderWare's Operational Intelligence for Javelin and Fusion.

Overview
What is a Metric?
Properties of a Metric
Key Features

Click to download in pdf format.

As business look to increase profitability and efficiency in their business operations there is an increasing requirement for real time optimisation of business activities. One of the key components of improving business performance is reducing the time between when a business issue arises, the assessment of the situation and the action taken to address the immediate issue. Subsequent identification of reoccurring issues and the elimination of the root causes of the continuous failure further improve business performance. A critical step in improving operational performance is if the time taken in this cycle is reduced. However, traditional methods of managing these issues often fail to provide timely and accurate data to enable employees to approach business improvement in a systematic way.

OrderWare Solutions has developed a range of business solutions which focus on improving the flexibility, accuracy and efficiency of distributed business processes. These solutions manage executable processes at both business and data integration levels. In a continuation of OrderWare’s product roadmap, Javelin and Fusion applications can now be upgraded to support real time statistical capabilities that provide what industry analysts are now calling “ Operational Intelligence”.

Operational Intelligence (OI) differs from traditional decision support technologies such as Business Intelligence (BI) and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM). OI applications use an event driven architecture to detect the current state of activities and compare them against expected states. OrderWare’s Javelin and Fusion applications both have event driven architectures which support interactive process management. Once exceptions are identified the solutions provide sophisticated capabilities to analyse contextual information and generate events to select process control rules in workflows to handle the exception.

These events can also come from external sources and are analysed in real time for specific thresholds, complex “what if” calculations or specified event types. On receipt of an event pattern which varies from expected behaviour the applications trigger new events that can initiate notifications, implement compensating business processes or a range of other context specific actions.

OrderWare’s OI solutions are ideal for transactionally intensive environments and provide:

Analysis and tracking of transactions and other business data flows (e.g. orders, bookings, policies, invoices, ASN’s, etc)
Continuous evaluation of control limits, including if they are being breached, how frequently and in what ways. (e.g. order delivery in full and on time (DIFOT), inventory availability, partner and warehouse response times, transport lead times and variances, etc)
Monitoring service levels and performance targets (e.g. supplier performance monitoring)
Real time process optimisation – handling failures and identifying what other activities are going to be affected and what options can be taken to resolve the situation.
Management of transaction integrity at systems and process levels
Management of data integrity with remote systems and distributed integration processes (such as commonly found in B2B contexts).
Real time analysis to determine the likely future outcomes based on performance right now.
Monitor telemetry (e.g. RFID) data flows and the application of appropriate business rules for routing and decision support.

What is a Metric?

The primary component used by OrderWare Operational Intelligence solutions is a “Metric”. A Metric is a measurable aspect of any process or event and can be:

A frequency of an event or process condition occurring
A context aware calculation that utilises business process information
Discrete, continuous or time based
Integrated into business and data flows as well as web applications
Sourced from external systems
Reused in multiple areas of a solution
Linked across process models and workflows

Properties of a Metric

A Metric is used on business processes, web applications and data interfaces to measure the performance of the business. The Metric result is either continuously evaluated or evaluated when the Metric is invoked by data passing through the business process.

A Metric has a number of attributes that are configured to measure and evaluate the process performance.

The “Function” of Metric defines a calculation that results in a measurement e.g. a frequency or count, an average, a minimum etc.
The “Classifiers” define the groupings that the measurement is evaluated in the context of e.g. time based classifiers such as “per hour” or business entity based such as “per supplier”.
The “Thresholds” are the monitoring dimension of a Metric. They perform the comparisons to expected behaviour and the events to be invoked in the case of a threshold breach.

Key OI Features

Visual Metric Designer	Business processes are graphically designed using a “drag and drop” approach. Metrics are placed onto workflow processes as discrete nodes and executed in the context of the workflow. Metric rules, classifiers, thresholds, event types and process extensions can all be configured with the model driven management console.
Real Time Metric Visibility	Javelin and Fusion provide visibility of Metrics as they occur.
Real Time Event Handling and Flow Control	Any given Metric event can have its own discrete process. These processes are initiated by a Metric Event and can involve alerts, notifications, systems updates, compensating business processes and/or process interventions.
User Definable Metrics	In addition to a library of standard Metrics for commonly performed measurements users can define their own Metrics and apply them however and wherever there is a requirement.
Thresholds and Control Limits	A Metric can have multiple Thresholds and Control Limits applied. Each Threshold or Control limit can have its own unique event type which can be processed uniquely. Users can also specify the frequency within which breaches of Thresholds or Control Limits is acceptable.
Exportable Metrics Logs	Firms wishing to provide long run historical Metric performance may export Metric data to other databases for additional analysis or access the Metric data using 3rd Party reporting tools.
Metric Monitors	Metrics can be deployed and distributed around a host network and centrally managed and maintained. This allows for distributed processing, load balancing and improves overall network efficiency.
Integrated with Javelin and Fusion’s Process Design and Execution Capabilities	OI can be integrated seamlessly into existing Javelin Business Process Models or Fusion Interface Workflows. The Metrics can leverage all the capabilities of the Event Framework (meta-data sources, state models, events monitors, transports and utilities) and are based on the same model driven approach applied in each of these applications.

This new capability is being released as Javelin OI and Fusion OI.

More Information: For more information please contact OrderWare at enquiries@orderware.net.

Return to the solution directory

	Solutions Overview An introduction to what we call a solution.
	Solution Components The components that commonly make up a business solution.
	Solution Directory Reuseble solutions to fit any business need.

Accessible Version Imprint