Collaboration for Product Development and Retirement

The IBM WebSphere Business Integration Collaboration for Product Development and Retirement manages creation and retirement of products, services, or collections of products or services such as product bundles or service bundles in the telecommunications industry.

The Product Development and Retirement collaboration does not have functional relationships with other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations, as shown in the following diagram:

Relationships with other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations

Position in telecommunications operations map

The Customer Problem Handling collaboration handles operations related to developing and retiring products and services within the business domain of product lifecycle management.

The diagram below shows the position of the collaboration in the enhanced Telecom Operation Map (eTOM) as defined by the TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum).

Position in enhanced Telecommunications Operations Map

Business rules

The following business rules apply to the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Collaboration for Product Development and Retirement:

Process limitations

The Product Development and Retirement collaboration does not currently support the following function points:

System assumptions

Like the other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations, the Product Development and Retirement collaboration uses WebSphere MQ Workflow Server and IBM WebSphere InterChange Server. IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters are used to connect between these two applications, and to other applications that participate in the collaboration.

It is assumed that the following applications also participate in the Product Development and Retirement collaboration:

This collaboration uses the collaboration templates listed below:

The system features that are expected to execute this collaboration, including IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters, are shown in the following diagram:

Product Development and Retirement collaboration system assumptions

Use case

This process involves the development and delivery of a product, service, or other item to the market. The process begins when a new item offering is proposed, and is completed when a salable item is available on the market.

Actors

The Product Development and Retirement use case has a single actor, a marketing analyst. The marketing analyst is responsible for the development of products and services that can be offered to clients or subscribers.

Course

The following tables describe the main course and the alternate course that may be followed in the Product Development and Retirement use case

Use case description (main course)
# Activity by the actor System activity Reference
M1 Enter item search criteria Find and retrieves item from product catalog 1
M2 Enter item data Add item to product catalog  
M3 Set item status Record item detail  

Use case description (alternate course)
# Activity by the actor System activity Reference
1 Verify item data   M3
  Modify item data Update item M3

The following activity diagram illustrates the Product Development and Retirement use case:

Product Development and Retirement activity diagram

Note: In the activity diagrams, these shapes are used to identify process activities:

Legend of activities

Business examples

The following business examples show situations where the Product Development and Retirement use case is realized.

Add a new service

This example consists of the following steps:

  1. A new service has been developed for the market and needs to be added to the Product Catalog, along with information on the external supplier.
  2. The marketing analyst performs a search for the new service.
  3. After confirming that the new service is not contained within the current catalog, the marketing analyst enters the new service information and adds it to a catalog management system.
  4. The new service is then made available for sale through a catalog management system.

Update an existing service

This example consists of the following steps:

  1. A new service has been developed for the market and needs to be added to the product catalog, along with information on the external supplier.
  2. The marketing analyst performs a search for the new service.
  3. The marketing analyst finds an existing service that matches the new service within the current catalog The marketing analyst checks the existing service information and finds that the information is incorrect.
  4. The marketing analyst modifies and updates the service information on a catalog management system.
  5. The new service is then made available for sale through a catalog management system.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2002, 2003