Dear BPX community members, Welcome to the second blog on composite applications and composite applications development for the consumer products (CP) industry. As always, I am looking forward to your feedback, ideas, comments, questions and/or suggestions on this posting. In this issue, I would like to introduce you to a composite application, xILR (Inventory Level Replenishment) that is currently in development (and planned for shipment early 2007). xILR has a special appeal to the consumer products (CP) industry, but also to other industries, ie. wholesale, retail, life science. xILR simplifies the collaboration between a manufacturer (or a wholesaler for that matter) and its smaller customers for sales order processing, particularly in those instances, where the manufacturer’s customers’ do not have a sophisticated IT landscape, but rather run a lean IT landscape (ie. office-based application, including basic email functionality) and have a recurring sales order process in place (ie. predefined product assortments, where quantities and/or values during the recurring order process differ slightly). Here, the order replenishment process should be lean, easily handled and executed, preferably without too much system interaction. With xILR, participating customers are periodically asked to interact with the manufacturers (or wholesalers) on their current inventory levels of the different products via email, in order to automatically calculate the replenishment quantity for the next order / shipment to the customer by using Adobe Interactive Forms (AIF). The following chart describes the high-level process view and the collaborative aspects of xILR. 
xILR’s currently planned features are - Definition and persistency of customer/products master data as well as targeted inventory levels locally - Offline collaboration via email (via AIF) - Ad–Hoc collaboration (or online ordering) via email form (AIF) / UI 
xILR is developed using - SAP’s Composite Application Framework (SAP CAF) for setting up the business logic - Process modelling and coordination via Guided Procedures (GP) - Adobe interactive Forms (IAF), - Visual Composer modeled user interfaces (UIs) - Netweaver 2004s (usage types DI, BI and EP). xILR will be also be fully enterprise service-enabled for ERP connectivity (for master data retrieval on customers, products, as well as sales order creation). Further information on SAP’s CAF can be found on SDN or here. xILR is your perfect example in demonstrating how SAP’s vision on enterprise SOA can add value to your business today. By introducing xILR into their business, manufacturers (wholesalers) can replace a previous error-intensive procedure with asynchronous handling of replenishment request, whilst avoiding out-of-stock situations and ensuring constant supply to their respective customers. For those of you who are interested in a short demo on xILR, please let me know via email and I can demonstrate the business process in a bit more detail, while walking you through a demo scenario. Also, if you are interested in participating in our exclusive xAPP piloting program please contact me in order to discuss applicability to your business and next steps for the piloting program. Thanks for reading this post and I'll see you in a few weeks. I always welcome your comments and suggestions about this blog. Stay tuned for more updates. Until then. Best Gudrun Fischer
xILR’s currently planned features are - Definition and persistency of customer/products master data as well as targeted inventory levels locally - Offline collaboration via email (via AIF) - Ad–Hoc collaboration (or online ordering) via email form (AIF) / UI xILR is developed using - SAP’s Composite Application Framework (SAP CAF) for setting up the business logic - Process modelling and coordination via Guided Procedures (GP) - Adobe interactive Forms (IAF), - Visual Composer modeled user interfaces (UIs) - Netweaver 2004s (usage types DI, BI and EP). xILR will be also be fully enterprise service-enabled for ERP connectivity (for master data retrieval on customers, products, as well as sales order creation). Further information on SAP’s CAF can be found on SDN or here. xILR is your perfect example in demonstrating how SAP’s vision on enterprise SOA can add value to your business today. By introducing xILR into their business, manufacturers (wholesalers) can replace a previous error-intensive procedure with asynchronous handling of replenishment request, whilst avoiding out-of-stock situations and ensuring constant supply to their respective customers. For those of you who are interested in a short demo on xILR, please let me know via email and I can demonstrate the business process in a bit more detail, while walking you through a demo scenario. Also, if you are interested in participating in our exclusive xAPP piloting program please contact me in order to discuss applicability to your business and next steps for the piloting program. Thanks for reading this post and I'll see you in a few weeks. I always welcome your comments and suggestions about this blog. Stay tuned for more updates. Until then. Best Gudrun Fischer
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