Epicor Announces SOA Business Integration Platform

Epicor Software Corporation, a leading provider of integrated enterprise software solutions for the midmarket, have announced Epicor Service Connect, a Web services-based business integration platform that functions as the central integration point for implementing secure workflow orchestrations within Epicor applications and with third-party applications to enhance collaboration and automate business processes.

Service-Oriented Architecture Enables Business Agility

Harnessing the openness of XML Web services, Service Connect uses industry-wide standards and technology enabling businesses to deploy solutions now, confident that their investment will remain intact in the future.  The service oriented architecture (SOA) of Epicor solutions enables Service Connect to transform or combine application processes to streamline processing within the application framework.  Business components, represented as Web services outside of the application, can easily be accessed within Service Connect to eliminate non-value added steps or add value to any business process.

Better Business Processes through Collaboration

Designed to support both internal and external connectivity to Epicor solutions as well as to external applications or processes, Service Connect provides a straightforward solution for graphically mapping process flows and orchestrating transactions, and eliminating non-value added steps to streamline virtually any process. 

For example, processing sales orders typically involves multiple steps including numerous availability inquiries, reviews, and inventory release decisions, all serving to extend order lead times.  Service Connect enables users to eliminate many of these steps by creating orchestrations for routing processes to automated tasks, such as order-submit direct-to-pick for specific inventory items or priority order fulfillment for a companys best customers, in turn improving order-to-delivery performance.

By enabling solution users to automate tasks and processes within the application, Service Connect also helps to promote lean principles, continuous performance initiatives and Six Sigma quality.  As midmarket companies look to grow the bottom-line and expand market share, support for business agility in everyday processes is essential, said James Norwood, vice president of product marketing for Epicor.  Epicor Service Connect clearly demonstrates the business value of service-orientation within enterprise application software, by providing a straightforward workflow orchestration tool that improves collaboration, velocity of information, and ultimately value chain performance.

SureFire Sees the Light with Service Connect

Epicor customer SureFire LLC (www.surefire.com), manufacturer of the worlds finest flashlights and weapon mounted lights used by SWAT teams, military special operations units and emergency professionals, expects great increases in productivity through the use of Service Connect.

SureFire will leverage Service Connect to provide the interface between its Web site store front and Epicor Vantage 8.0, the industrys first manufacturing solution based on a 100-percent SOA and optimized for high performance and collaboration across the globally expanding supply chain.

Service Connect will verify that orders from the Web site store front are downloaded to Vantage, validated and rapidly acknowledged back to the Web site store front in near-real time. It will also coordinate exception handling, shipment notifications and verification of inventory availability levels. 

Based on our exposure to Service Connect, we feel it has the capability to perform the operations which we had originally envisioned and also perform tasks which will result in significant productivity increases going forward, said Vuong Hoang, senior information systems engineer at SureFire.

Availability

Epicor Service Connect is available immediately as a standard component of Epicor Vantage and Epicor iScala.  Availability for Epicor Enterprise solutions is expected to follow early in 2006.