Accelerated Electronic Connectivity AEC

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Accelerated Electronic Connectivity (AEC)

• What is AEC and What Have We Committed To?

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AEC Project

• Vision
• To electronically connect Ag Distributors and
  their crop protection Manufacturers to facilitate
  the communication of business activities.
• ObjectiveTo achieve production level electronic
  message exchanges supporting order to invoice,
  inventory and product movement reporting between
  approximately ten distributors and seven
  manufacturers by June 1, 2006.

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AEC Project

• AEC Will
• Provide facilitation of overall Project
  Coordination to achieve the Project Goals.
• Influence rigorous Standards setting and
  utilization based on RAPID Standard Guidelines.
• Promote open industry standards
• Drive efficient, value-based connections among
  industry participants
• AEC Will Not
• Be a direct implementer of projects within the
  participating member companies.
• Dictate use of specific implementation support
  partners or technical infrastructure.
• Directly disburse funds to vendors providing
  support to participating members implementations
  for expenses or capital investment.

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So What Have We Committed To?

• The people, resources needed to meet the timeline
  proposed (completion by 6/1/06)
• Connectivity 6 transactions with each Trading
  Partner (T/P)
• A person to serve on the Business Team and a
  person to serve on the Technical Team (can be the
  same person)
• Adhere to the Ag eStandards
• Utilize the AGIIS directory for data
  synchronization and identification

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So What Have We Committed To?

• Detailed project plan
• Work with the Project Coordinator regarding plan
• Weekly updates
• Willingness to resolve issues
• Abide by the RAPID anti-trust guidelines

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What Does That Mean?

• We have roughly 56 connections that need to be
  done by 6/1/06 (already completed __)
• Tight schedule
• A lot of dedication
• Hard work
• Lots of learning
• Hopefully some fun

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Why an Industry Project?

• Consistent business process implementation
• Consistent business message use
• Consistent entity product identification
  (AGIIS)
• Industry wide solution
• The opportunity to eliminate or reduce VAN costs

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Why an Industry Project?

• Resource reallocation opportunities - higher
  value work
• Cost reduction of 25-45 of the transactions in
  scope
• Cycle time reduction of 70-85 for in-scope
  transactions
• Partial funding by manufacturers to support
  system and process changes for distributors
• Ability to leverage best practices for additional
  customers/vendors and data segments

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Business Technical Teams
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AEC Project Leadership Model
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Business Technical Teams

• Business Leads from each Project Participant
  Team
• Accountable for Business Issue Resolution
• Responsible for Business Use Case Compliance

• Technical Leads from each Project Participant
  Team
• Accountable for Technical Issue Resolution
• Responsible for Project Schedule Compliance

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What is Expected of the Teams?

• Open forum to discuss issues
• Willingness to resolve issues keeping the
  industry in mind not just your companys
  interest
• Willingness to develop lower level business use
  cases that can be used within the industry.
• Working as a group to determine work-arounds that
  will not have impact on all T/Ps.
• Willing to dedicate the time on a regular basis.
• Willing to update the schedule and the Project
  Coordinator on a regular basis

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Milestones

• High level
• Each T/P will have their own Milestones
• Current Milestones

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High level - Milestones

• Can you connect?
• Initial Connection (milestone-55 days)
• Can your create messages?
• Develop the connectors from B/E system to XML
  transaction (milestone-24 days per transaction)
• Can you consume messages?
• Develop the connector from the XML transaction to
  B/E system (milestone-10 days per transaction)
• Can you support the process (choreographies, and
  business process)?
• Agree upon business objectives (milestone-16
  days)
• Agree upon the technical objectives (milestone-20
  days)
• Testing
• Test transaction performance and scenarios
  (milestone- 31 days)
• Test failure procedures (milestone- 13 days?)
• Production
• Move to production with cut-over plan
  (milestone-21 days)
• Agree upon quantity of transaction to constitute
  success (milestone-6 months)

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Current Milestones - Calls

• Weekly Update Calls
• With Active Participants
• Address issues that come up
• Collect evaluate info
• Adjust schedule?
• Contingency plans for delays
• Impact on project
• Risk Factors highlighted

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Current Milestones - Updates

• Weekly Updates to BOD
• Highlight activities
• Update Progress Dashboard
• Identify issues or risk to timeline
• Weekly Updates with teams eProjects
• Update progress via e-Projects
• Identify issues that have come up
• Monthly updates to membership
• Highlight activities

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Some of the Risks
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Risks

• The participating members willingness to commit
  the necessary resources in the timeframe
  required.
• The ordering and delivery lead times on some
  infrastructure hardware may result in project
  delays.
• The distributor must be able to test transactions
  with several manufacturers at the same time.
  They will need to sequence the manufacturer
  testing process.
• The design and development efforts must be
  sufficiently staffed to allow for work on
  multiple transactions concurrently.

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Risks

• Inability to resolve business or technical issues
  quickly.
• Delays due to agreements that may need to be
  signed prior to T/Ps starting with 3PV
• Manufacturers updating their product information
  in AGIIS, and their Ship From locations in AGIIS
• Distributors updating their Ship To, Bill To and
  Sold To locations in AGIIS.

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Critical Path
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Implementation Process (Business to Business
Connectivity)
Phases
1 PLAN
2 ASSESS
3 ENABLE
4 TEST
5 GO-LIVE
Agree to business processes
Initial
Identify
Integration Testing
Build
Business
Gaps/
Yes
Assessment
Issues
Introductory Meeting
Internal Planning Session
Process
Migration to production
Test
Kickoff
Go-Live
Proceed?
Planning
Configure
Meeting
No
Connectivity Security Test Execution
Infrastructure
Terminate
Business Process Validation Testing
Workarounds
Assessment
Process
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Questions?