Woolworths has invested further in its supply chain redevelopment programme by adding sophisticated business process management (BPM) capabilities and continued on its move towards service-oriented architecture (SOA).
webMethods Optimize, Software AG’s business activity monitoring (BAM) solution, will provide Woolworths with real-time insight into how their supply chain processes are performing, what’s working well, where there may be bottlenecks and why, and what can be improved. It will allow Woolworths to create and build process strategies against its business vision, defining and tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for people, process and system performance throughout their supply chain.
Software AG is also providing CentraSite, which will underpin Woolworths’ entire service-oriented architecture, including the business activity monitoring component, by providing a registry and repository for SOA artefacts and governance throughout the entire SOA lifecycle.
These investments will assist Woolworths in meeting its strategic goals of enhancing IT and business agility in the face of constant business change; enabling implementation and use of enterprise-wide processes and services; better aligning IT with the business; and reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Woolworths CIO Daniel Beecham said: “webMethods has been a key element in the technology platform that has helped us revolutionise our logistics business. The confidence we gained from that program encouraged us to further leverage our webMethods investment in the areas of SOA and Process.”
In 2006, Woolworths had named webMethods [now Software AG webMethods] its “IT Supplier of the Year” for enabling software. This was based on the quantitative results of the retailer’s quarterly vendor performance assessment and recognised the significant contributions made in advancing Woolworths’ business objectives. The retailer had previously standardised on the webMethods Suite as its integration standard, which has allowed Woolworths to more rapidly integrate new acquisition, automate and streamline core processes, and extend real-time visibility across key partners.