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$250k savings
For many midmarket companies, SOA implementation takes less than a year. At FormFactor, the entire integration effort was complete in just eight months. And because the new system was built with Oracle's BPEL Designer and BPEL Process Manager, the company inherited capabilities that BPEL engines like Oracle's typically provide, including human workflow, task lists, notifications, escalations and so on.
Banker says such turnaround time is simply unrivaled by any approach he's seen. It saved FormFactor at least $250,000. "We were able to get our [Java] programmers up to speed in less than two weeks," Baker says. "And the scalability is just amazing. We have about 5,000 transactions flowing through the system, and the load is absolutely nothing."
And FormFactor senior managers are shedding their skepticism about SOA. Three additional system and process alignment projects are planned over the next 12 months. First up is the task of integrating FormFactor's CRM and process data management (PDM) platforms with its ERP system.
After that, the company wants to tie the PDM and Promis MES platforms together. The end result: alignment of virtually all major supply chain and manufacturing platforms. "The executives are absolutely excited because they are seeing the impact of developing these business process models, integrating the key processes, and automating and orchestrating them as Web services," Banker says. "That's the business potential of SOA."
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