BOMManager collaboration template

Bills of material (BOMs) define the material requirements and product structures used in the supply planning and production planning processes in manufacturing. Product structures show all the components needed to produce a single assembly and how these components relate to each other in quantity and in quality.

In addition to material requirements, BOMs list all the subassemblies, intermediate assemblies, parts, and raw materials that comprise a parent assembly, along with the quantity required to make an assembly. They also show how raw materials are converted into finished goods and how components are put together to create subassemblies. You can use a BOM to define standard and stable end items, product families, assemble-to-order items, make-to-order items, and configurable products.

The BOMManager collaboration template synchronizes new and updated BOM information across an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, Customer Interaction Management (CIM) application, and a Supply Chain Management (SCM) application. The collaboration ensures that all BOM information is the same for the source and the destination applications. This collaboration provides a common view of BOM information throughout an organization, which supports business objectives to maximize efficiency, improve quality, and reduce cost in manufacturing planning and production. BOM information is typically duplicated across multiple systems and plants, which support different business functions, such as planning, sales, finance, and production.

In this collaboration template, the source and destination data can be various types of software applications. The source application triggers the creation of a BOMHeader business object. Synchronization of BOM information allows separate applications to share information consistently whenever data is created, changed, or deleted in the enterprise.

This collaboration supports the synchronization of the following BOM data:

BOMManager uses the generic BOMHeader business object, which represents BOM information used in an ERP or CIM application.

Collaboration object setup

This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on BOMManager. For information on standard features, ports, and configuration properties for collaboration templates, and for general information on creating collaboration objects refer to the Collaboration Development Guide.

Port information

Figure 1 illustrates BOMManager's ports, as they are displayed in System Manager.

Figure 1. BOMManager collaboration ports

Note: To prevent the collaboration object from using a port, bind that port to the Port connector. Binding the port indicates that the port is unused without causing the collaboration object to provide additional functionality.

Port name: DestinationAppRetrieve
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
BOMHeader The destination application's connector Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object. The result determines the verb to use when synchronizing the BOMHeader.

Retrieve


Port name: DestinationSKU
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
SKU Destination application's connector Retrieves the SKU business object from the destination application.

Retrieve


Port name: From
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
BOMHeader Source application's connector or calling collaboration

Receives the triggering business object. At the end of a synchronous call, this port also returns the triggering business object to the source application when the collaboration ends successfully.

Create Retrieve Update Delete


Port name: To
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
BOMHeader

The destination application's connector

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration.

Create Update Delete

Setting up the collaboration object

BOMManager is designed to be used as a stand-alone collaboration. To set up BOMManager as a stand-alone collaboration object, follow these steps:

  1. Create the BOMManager collaboration object.
  2. Bind each of the collaboration object's ports as described in Port information..
  3. Set the Configuration properties for BOMManager.

Collaboration template processes

This section illustrates the process logic for this collaboration template:

Overall process logic

To synchronize BOM data between applications, BOMManager performs the processes illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. BOMManager process logic

Inherited process logic

This collaboration template uses the following standard collaboration business processes:

For information on these processes, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

SKU-Checking process

Retail and manufacturing businesses use Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) to track and maintain inventory. Not all SKUs are pertinent to supply-planning applications, so the collaboration can be configured to validate whether the object is necessary for planning. The collaboration uses the CHECK_SKU property to determine whether to check for the existence of a SKU business object in the destination application.

Figure 3 illustrates the process that occurs if the collaboration is configured to perform a SKU check. If the collaboration determines that a SKU parent business object does not exist at the destination, it raises an exception and stops processing without synchronizing the triggering business object. The REMOVE_BOMITEM_WITH_INVALID_SKU property can be configured to remove from the business object array any child business objects that do not exist in the destination.

Figure 3. BOMManager SKU process

Compensation processing

InterChange Server Express can roll back a transaction when any step in a transactional collaboration fails. For example, when BOMManager is a member of a collaboration-object group that participates in a transactional collaboration, its actions are one subtransactional step of a larger transaction. If any step in the collaboration-object group's business process fails, the transactional collaboration details how InterChange Server Express rolls back the processing of every collaboration in the group.

When a BOMManager collaboration object is used independently of other collaboration objects or the collaboration object's From port is bound to a source application rather than to another collaboration, its process comprises a single transactional step. In such a situation, it is not necessary to perform rollback.

To cause a collaboration object or a collaboration-object group to perform rollback requires modification of the collaboration template. To understand transaction processing in the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Express Plus system, see the System Implementation Guide. For information about adding transaction processing to the collaboration template, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

To extend the collaboration object to handle transaction processing, complete the following steps:

  1. Add this capability to the collaboration template and to every other collaboration template in the collaboration-object group.
  2. Set the minimum transaction level of the collaboration object and all members of the collaboration-object group to a value higher than None. If a failure occurs in any subtransaction step, settings of Minimal Effort or higher cause this collaboration object and other collaboration objects in the group to execute compensation for Create, Update, and Delete operations performed on all business objects.
  3. Set the USE_RETRIEVE property of the collaboration object and all other members of the collaboration-object group to "true." Forcing the collaboration objects to retrieve values before changing them allows the collaboration objects to restore the original values in an Update or Delete process.

Configuration properties

This section describes the standard properties and collaboration template-specific properties for this collaboration template:

Standard properties

This collaboration template uses the following standard configuration properties for collaboration templates:

For information on these configuration properties, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

Properties specific to this collaboration template

In addition to its standard configuration properties, this collaboration template has the configuration properties described below.

Configuration properties specific to the BOMManager collaboration template

Property name and explanation Possible values Default value

CHECK_SKU

Specifies whether the collaboration must check for the existence of the SKU business object in the destination application.

  • Set to "true" to cause the collaboration to check whether a SKU exists in the destination application.
  • Set to "false" to cause the collaboration not to check for an associated SKU in the destination application.
true, false false

REMOVE_BOMITEM_WITH_INVALID_SKU

Specifies whether to remove a child line item that contains an invalid SKU.

  • Set to "true" to cause the collaboration to remove a child line item if it does not exist in the destination application. The collaboration fails if all child line items are removed from the destination application.
  • Set to "false" to cause the collaboration to fail if the SKU check fails.

true, false

false

Collaboration messages

To view an explanation of the messages of this collaboration template, launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file. To launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file:

  1. In the Start menu, click Programs > IBM WebSphere Business Integration Express > Toolset Express > Administrative > Log Viewer.
  2. In the File menu, click Open.
  3. Use the Look In field to change the current folder to ProductDir\collaborations\messages, and then select the message file for this collaboration template.

Upgrade information

Upgrade process

To upgrade to a newer version of the collaboration template, perform the following steps:

  1. Stop the BOMManager version x.x.x collaboration.
  2. Back up the repository. For information about backing up the repository, see the System Implementation Guide.
  3. If you have customized the collaboration template:
  4. Install the new ARInvoiceSync collaboration template.
  5. Add your customizations to the new collaboration template.
  6. Create the new collaboration object, binding it to the appropriate connectors. For more information, see Collaboration setup.
  7. Run and test the new collaboration object.
  8. Make changes to the collaboration object based on any problems found during testing.

Copyright IBM Corp. 1997, 2004