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| Enhanced i2 Agile Business Process Platform Now Available i2 Technologies, Inc. has announced the availability of an enhanced version of the i2 Agile Business Process Platform. The platform features supply chain data management, staging and integration, an enhanced studio for an integrated development, testing and deployment environment, and an expanded collection of best practices and supply chain workflows. As the foundation of i2's next-generation supply chain management (SCM) solutions, the i2 Agile Business Process Platform is being used by companies worldwide to deploy global visibility, planning, partner collaboration, advanced supply chain execution, and control. Customers have used the platform to extend industry-specific supply chain practices such as distributed inventory management in the automotive industry, buyer visibility hubs in metals companies, advanced assortment and multi-echelon inventory optimization for retailers, or virtual direct sales models among high-tech and consumer goods companies. Built specifically for supply chain management, the enhanced version of the i2 Agile Business Process Platform, version 3.0, includes the following features: - SAP adaptors for Materials Management (MM) and Sales and Distribution (SD) modules - An enhanced i2 Studio including an improved integrated development, testing and deployment environment - Enhanced data model management and extensibility - Enhanced customizations of user interfaces, workflows and business logic - Enhanced data staging and net change capability - Support for reusable user interface templates - Specifications for search, audit trail, purge, upload and export, and state modeling - Support for model validations and re-factoring Today's rapidly changing global business landscape requires companies to use flexible and robust information technology that allows monitoring the real world and responding quickly to changing circumstances, both inside and outside of the enterprise. Accurate and relevant information is needed in order to enable predictable, high-quality supply chain operations. These operations can be achieved through speed and reactivity, flexibility, and low-cost production and integration of IT solutions. While the platform provides a technological foundation for speed, reactivity and flexibility through service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles, the i2 Business Content Library is key to enabling integration. The i2 Business Content Library is a logical collection of next-generation workflows and web services, with the built-in capabilities of data staging, validation, and business rules. These workflows are designed to be used as building blocks to compose and orchestrate specific supply chain processes. i2 next-generation solutions, for example i2 Customer Order Fulfillment, i2 Collaborative Supply Execution, i2 Inventory Optimization, i2 Merchandise Financial Planning and i2 Supply Chain Visibility, are also assembled with these building blocks. The building blocks cover all architectural aspects of a business application including data models and data rules, integration patterns, business workflows and graphical user interfaces. For example, a building block may encapsulate an inventory balancing functionality that is shared across i2 next-generation solutions as an exception resolution mechanism. Overall, the Business Content Library's workflows offer building blocks to assist with functional areas such as visibility, planning, collaboration, execution and control. i2 platform uses a single light-weight technology base, so it blends easily with a heterogeneous IT environment and existing applications. Because it is designed for the construction and adaptation of SCM business processes, the platform coexists, complements and enhances non-supply chain specific enterprise platforms such as IBM's Websphere, SAP's NetWeaver, BEA's Weblogic, Oracle's Fusion and Microsoft's .Net. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Computing News :: home page |