Technology
A major problem in today’s autonomous ERP-systems is that they have severe weaknesses with regard to marshalling cross-organizational information sharing. One possible solution to this problem could be to try to upgrade these systems to a proper lever; however, it’s likely that this would be a very time-consuming and costly process. Another alternative, the one taken by X2X, is utilize the opportunities provided by new technology and add a complimentary IS-tool to the already existing ERP-systems.
The main problem with the ERP-systems is their lack of capability to catch information related to events happening outside the company’s intranet infrastructure and events related to the physical flow. Already today, especially with the growth of automated data-capture (sensors, RFID, computers in vehicles etc), the number of available events is high. And in the future, the number of available events will increase dramatically.
To capture these events and utilize the information that can be extracted from them is very important. Unfortunately, today’s solutions are rarely flexible enough to take advantage of this opportunity due to the fact that their core database and system architecture are not designed to handle new events on the fly.
Social networking solutions and event-driven architectures
As opposed to the common ERP-systems, X2X is technologically influenced by the thinking behind social networking solutions like Facebook and contemporary work on event-driven architectures (EDA).
We are convinced that the architecture of modern logistics systems must be event-driven and dynamic in its core and X2X addresses this.
X2X is all about flexibility – we are convinced that flexibility, or iterative and evolutionary development and deployment, are the key. This requires a dynamic data store; data can gradually be added from new sources, even though we don’t know the format or the meaning of the new elements.
As already mentioned, X2X is not meant to, or capable of, substituting any ERP-system. However, X2X can be added as an additional system to cope with the events today’s ERP-systems are not able to handle. To combine the capabilities of the existing ERP-systems, and the new functionality available through X2X, will bring information sharing across supply chains/networks to a new level. Consequently, improved collaboration across the many actors in the supply chain, resulting in more sustainable logistics, would be the outcome.
