Linking Disparate Technology
July 08, 2009
Some companies choose a fully integrated solution tailored to the specific needs of the construction industry. Others choose the best-of-breed approach. Those companies that opt for the latter need to plan for developing and maintaining integration paths between systems, and need options at their disposal.
The Oracle, www.oracle.com, Redwood Shores, Calif., JD Edwards EnterpriseOne product is an example. Companies using this as their ERP (enterprise resource planning) system are looking for ways to connect it to such critical systems as project management. When Oracle announced its acquisition of Primavera Systems in late 2008, the question of how the two systems would integrate was a hot topic of discussion in the industry.
It has been announced that CSS Intl., www.cssus.com, Charleston, S.C., a certified advantage partner in the Oracle Partner Network, has agreed to develop integration between the Primavera product and Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne product. Under the agreement, CSS will co-develop Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Process Integration Packs (PIPs) for Primavera P6 Enterprise and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.
According to CSS, Oracle AIA allows systems integrators to build their own integration solutions using the Oracle AIA Foundation. The company says this helps develop a service-oriented architecture based approach to business process integration across Oracle and third-party applications.
While the work that is being done by CSS is strictly for linking EnterpriseOne with Primavera, there are a few other middleware options for linking the product with other systems.
For example, Balfour Beatty Construction, www.balfourbeattyus.com, Dallas, Texas, worked with Jitterbit, www.jitterbit.com, Oakland, Calif., to create a link between JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and its Constructware project management system. Jitterbit allowed Balfour Beatty Construction to integrate the two systems, including notifications, data validation, and a custom mechanism to submit budgets from a designated file. Professional integration consulting services provided by Jitterbit will work with business and IT professionals at Balfour Beatty to apply the Jitterbit solution to any future challenges related to integration at the company.
Jason Bentley, director of business systems, Balfour Beatty, says while the main driver behind the selection of the Jitterbit product was to integrate ERP with project management, the company has also leveraged the solution to link other third-party applications with the ERP. This includes systems to manage employee benefits, 401k programs, bank reconciliation, and tax reporting agencies, among others.
"When you talk about (these other third-party systems) they are really flat-file based,” says Bentley. "JD Edwards will generate a file and output it to a network directory--JD Edwards is doing a lot of processing to make sure it is outputting data correctly--and then Jitterbit picks it up and manipulates it once it is outside of JD Edwards. It then manages the sending of that file to the provider--checks it was received properly does all the error handling, etc. On the flipside, it then takes the file in (manipulates it) and passes it to back to JD Edwards. It is really a middleware component."