New paths to greater flexibility

As standard software becomes ever more complex, a remarkable role reversal is taking place: control is slipping from the hands of the masters of standard software and they are becoming the mastered. Some beleaguered customers are even losing control completely.

Continued growth doesn’t necessarily make the growing structure stronger. Once the optimum point has been reached, the usefulness abates. Sometimes, less proves to be more – and that doesn’t just apply to standard software. A huge seagoing vessel such as the Queen Mary 2 can’t feasibly be used on narrow canals for inland navigation – a smaller, more agile craft is needed. So it’s all the more astounding that the software industry is still attempting to use its “standard software” luxury liner (although the name may change from time to time) on all shipping channels. Even ones for which this giant has simply become too big.

Standard is too complex

Medium-sized companies in particular often find little use for a complex standard solution. Although there are difficult processes to be mapped here, these clients by no means possess unlimited funds. Yet the standard software luxury liner is especially expensive to build and maintain. Nor is it able to achieve every goal; it often proves to be too complex and inflexible. Attempts by providers of cross-industry and international standard software to disguise the ever expanding offering of functionality only seemingly reduce their complexity. Even if the customer only uses the functions he really needs, an oceangoing giant is still an oceangoing giant.

So what moves software producers to give customers something they don’t need? Software companies need to map all the requirements of the different industries and countries in a single package as far as possible. This keeps manufacturing costs low. The recipient of this complex structure, on the other hand, gets the raw end of the deal. For him, the additional functionality turns out to be a burden that makes rolling out the software more difficult and causes costs to rocket. A service provider doesn’t need software that also maps production processes – on the contrary, such a system is just a hindrance.

The search for solutions

Neither the world’s various programming languages nor the different methods of developing software have yet found a way out of this dilemma. In fact, the complexity of software solutions continues to grow. The costs for maintenance, adaptations and care have long amounted to several times the purchase price. Today’s application software is neither of better quality, nor more flexible, and it’s no quicker or cheaper to roll out.

Doctrines of salvation written in XML, MDA, SOA, ESOA announced at ever more frequent intervals are proof of the entire industry’s desire to find a suitable solution. And there’s no shortage of oddities. Although none of the SOA disciples knows how to reach the goal everyone is striving for, it doesn’t prevent them from encouraging everyone to jump on their bandwagon. Their motto seems to be “You start building the house; we’ll deliver the foundation when it’s done.”

tangro methods take a new approach

That’s why the tangro architecture is taking a completely new direction. What it focuses on is the business management process. The customer formulates his requirements as far as possible in business management terminology and not in UML, methods and classes. The tangro method is geared exclusively to the images and language of the company here, and not those of IT. When a business management process needs to be described, it is done graphically in the form of EPC (Event Process Chains) – a method which IDS Scheer and others have already been using successfully for this purpose for some time. At tangro, however, the process description goes hand in hand with the implementation of the software.

It’s truly unique: the application is created or changed the moment that business management processes are graphically modelled. Individual process modules are combined in such a way as to create executable software that correctly maps business management processes. Each process module stands for a special sub-process and in turn contains granular software modules which can be reused to a large extent. There’s no need to transfer the process model into programme code once process modelling is complete. So it’s not just observing business management terminology that is important here, but the seamless transition from one level to the others. It completely avoids the error-prone and unnecessary transfer of a business management process model into an IT-specific model.

No interface programming

The individual modules “understand” one another at tangro without any additional work. Unlike the previous development methods, in which the software modules are only able to “understand” one another via interfaces, arranging the symbols graphically and linking them together is sufficient to define the flow of a process. Without the hindrance of an additional interface definition then, the benefits that result from reusing software modules can be used to their full potential. The conditions and variables according to which the individual processing steps take place are defined in the process model. In addition, the user formulates the conditions that can’t be usefully mapped in the process model because of their special combinatronics in the tangro Rule Based Engine (RBE). He is not confronted with technical details, as the RBE automatically copies all details into the software. So users in specialist departments don’t actually require any programming knowledge.

Tailor-made solution

The benefits of such an architectural approach are immense. It combines the advantages of an individual solution with those of standard software. Thanks to the graphical representation, corresponding applications are transparent and comprehensible for everyone. The main thing though is that because it’s so easy to combine the process modules without additional programming, tailor-made solutions can be created quickly and at low cost. They are in no way inferior to individual solutions, yet they meet significantly higher quality standards. Plus, it is a lot easier to maintain and expand the applications. This means that adaptations can be made quickly and with little effort – all that the user has to do is make use of existing modules and processes and remove superfluous ones. In this way, the customer gets exactly what he needs: software that is perfectly suited to his own requirements, without the additional ballast. Be it a luxury liner, canal boat or motor yacht – it’s entirely up to the customer.

tangro proves the benefits of a software architecture in the form of its tried and tested products. The Inbound Suite for SAP offers applications on the market which are already widely used for high-performance and efficient processing of inbound documents. The portfolio includes the solutions tangro OM for incoming order processing, tangro IM for automated processing of incoming invoices, tangro PA for payment advice notes and tangro RM for requisition notes. And tangro Web Workflow also provides a solution for release and approval workflows.

All tangro-solutions at a glace

Tailor-made solutions thanks to a unique system architecture from tangro
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