How Is Food Process Manufacturing Software Changing the Future of the Food Industry?

There is not a day that goes by without IT leaders trying to pull together disparate applications, data sources, and cloud services to form something that resembles a functioning system. This delicate endeavor, if not done in a way that is systematic and planned, can turn into a risk time bomb, slowing us down or leading to throwaway code. The cure for this confusion is none other than choosing and enforcing an intentional system integration methodology. This well-defined architecture defines how the various software parts and subsystems work together to operate as an integrated whole. For IT leaders with vision, the directive to embrace such a methodology becomes less of a preference in bureaucratic process and more of an operational mandate when it comes to achieving resiliency, acceleration time-to-value and managing costs across the full technology spectrum.

What is a System Integration Methodology anyway?

An enterprise integration methodology is not simply a list of technology items; it is a complete roadmap for the life of the integration. It creates a standard set of processes, tools, standards and best practices that lead groups from the early planning and design phases of a project through development, testing, deployment, and maintenance. This provides the methodology with which APIs should be designed and documented, how data will be mapped and transformed between systems, what security protocols needs to be enforced, and how integration success will be measured. Without the use of this model as a framework, every single integration project runs the blaring risk of being that one snowflake all on its lonesome — a unique creation that locks you into specific knowledge held only by an individual and leaves you with those annoying discrepancies no-one-knows-why-or-how were created.

How does standardization help to lower risk and strengthen security?

One of the most powerful reasons for IT leaders to give a damn about standardization is how it helps you mitigate risk. Ad-hoc integrations are infamous for introducing obscure security holes, unanticipated system crashes, and complex interdependence chains that can be impossible to follow. The attack surface is also widened and audit trails get muddy when every team leverages different processes. A uniform system integration approach by definition includes security and governance. It requires that all authentication mechanisms are the same, all logging is done the same way and certain error handling routines are already drawn. That means security is less an afterthought and more built into the fabric of every connection, so the entire IT environment becomes harder to crack and run(s) better with fewer of those regulatory vulnerabilities.

Will a Common Methodology Help to Expedite Projects?

It is a common myth that standardization slows everything down. In fact, a clearly defined integration approach will significantly expedite project delivery in the long run. When developers don’t have to build everything from scratch, they can concentrate on solving business problems instead of fighting with foundational plumbing. Reusable templates, vetted connectors and established patterns reduce development time to the bone. But in addition, a standardized process adds clarity and predictability to the issues of when we know what will happen. Testing is more effective because teams know what they’re looking for and have the tools to find it. This uniformity in turn eliminates last-minute surprises during the critical step when it’s time to integrate new components with production process software, and results in a faster and less painful journey from development to a stable go-live.

What is the Affect on System Uptime and Cost of Ownership?

Benefits of a standardized approach, however, go well beyond project start and significantly impact long-term operational stability and the total cost of ownership (TCO). Integrations constructed without a single framework can be brittle and hard to maintain. When things do go wrong, support teams can spend hours simply untangling how the integration was initially constructed. Standardized methodology provides documentation, monitorization and maintenance of all integrations in the same way. This dramatically reduces MTTR on incidents and makes upgrades easier, something especially important when making changes to a vital piece of production process software. The result is a more secure IT environment; reduced support costs; and limited, if any, accumulation of the invisible technical debt siphoning off most IT budgets.

How does this encourage Scalability and Future-Proofing?

The successful enterprises in today's market are not stagnant organizations, but ones that can shift and grow and adopt new technologies at a moment's notice. Adhoc integration creates a brittle system resistant to change. In contrast, a standard system integration methodology is inherently designed to scale and be future-safe. It creates a modular topology that enables new apps, data sources and even cloud platforms to fit seamlessly into the already established environment with minimal disruption. This is especially important as firms investigate more into advanced analytics, IoT platforms and AI services – all of which need to be able to seamlessly integrate with core operational systems. Investing in a standardization approach now allows IT leaders to lay the foundation of an integration backbone that enables scalable growth and technology transformation for years to come.

Conclusion

For IT leaders, it is no longer a case of whether they should standardize their integration efforts, but how soon can they get in place a comprehensive framework. Throughout this discussion, an approach to integration can be considered a strategic vehicle that is not bound by the technicalities of how systems are connected. It’s a powerful management tool that has a direct money value to the organisation through derisking projects, quicker delivery, stability of operation and laying down scalable capability for the future. In a day and age when business strength is often determined by the power of 'many systems becoming one,' advocating a consistent, disciplined system integration approach defines strategic IT leadership.