IBM to Use Camelot Software to Build Supply-Chain Links
The skills of thousands of programmers are at work today building links between SAP's R/3 business-management software and legacy or specialized programs already in use at industrial manufacturers. One such case is in oil refineries where IBM's Cipros (Computer Integrated Process and Refinery Operations System) is in use. To speed the integration of Cipros, which has specialized tank farm, logistics and fuel-blending capabilities, with general-purpose ERP systems like R/3, IBM will now use an integration technology called Skyva, from Camelot IS-2 International (Mannheim, Germany and Cambridge, MA).
One of the classic problems of ERP integrations with process-industries manufacturing is that it R/3 is transaction-based: Updates or commands don't happen in real time. At the other end of the spectrum, the control system actually running a refinery operates primarily in real, or near-real, time. Coordinating the hand-off from transaction-based systems to event-based ones is a complex programming task. "Camelot's contribution is a breakthrough in integrating the event-based plant environment—where refining takes place—with the transaction-based environmental of traditional corporate systems," says Alex Shootman, an executive with IBM Production Business Solutions. "As a result, it gives businesses an end-to-end supply chain management system."
Camelot's Skyva solution is a set of programming tools that allow users to model business processes, link logistics programs via preconfigured templates, and integrate new and existing programs to form a united supply chain. Implementation time—the killer in many R/3 projects going on today—is said to be sped up by the simultaneous design, configuration and validation procedures that Skyva allows. The technology is Java-based, and uses protocols common to the World Wide Web for communications between programs.
IBM has already installed Cipros at the Agip Petroleum refinery in Sannazzarro, Italy and the Petrofina refinery in Rome, and is working on an installation for Sinopec in China. In the U.S., Cipros is being installed at the Star Enterprise refinery in Convent, LA.
Camelot was founded in 1996 by Gunther Moeckesch, formerly an R&D director at SAP. The company's products have been used in a variety of manufacturing enterprises, primarily to handle supply-chain integration issues.
For more information: Bryce Betteridge, Camelot IS-2 International. 25 First St. Cambridge, MA 02141. Tel: 617 588 7600.
By Nick Basta