OAGi’s SME connectKit (formerly Express Pack) was developed to help small and medium-sized businesses digitize their business processes, leveraging modern techniques that helps accelerate their implementation and provide consistent representation of information across each integration. The diagram below is a high-level order-to-cash scenario using a UML sequence diagram showing the basic view of the connectKit nouns (messages) used in integrations, without detailed implementation considerations. Key supported business-process areas include:

• Order Management

• Manufacturing

• Logistics

• Finance

Each noun (message) in the connectKit is the minimal viable product (MVP) of data elements and cardinality (min/max required or permitted) that will be an accelerator for SMEs, and their respective software vendors providing solutions to manage supply chain information. SMEs may choose to implement portions of the connectKit that address their pain-points to provide process efficiencies and value, so they can focus on running the business.

Each noun is a business information entity (BIE) profile managed by OAGi’s SME Working Group using Score, an open-source tool hosted by OAGi. The open source project is managed by OAGi on GitHub. Developers with expertise in Java, Javascript, Angular.js, and MySQL are invited to contribute to the effort. ISO 20022 is out of scope for the connectKit.

Download options include:

• JSON Schema for sftp, message oriented middleware, and other non-HTTP transport mechanisms,

• OpenAPI Specification for RESTful HTTP implementations, allowing code generation of Servers and Clients using Swagger Editor, and,

• XML Schema for legacy middleware implementations,

• PlantUML source code for the sequence diagram below, so they can edit and adjust to their specific project,

• Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) collaboration diagram of the customer and supplier business processes that informed the creation of the connectKit, which can be adapted to the SME business processes for more detail (courtesy of Trisotech.com).

Comma-Separated Value (CSV) representation of the connectKit noun definitions is on the horizon.

@startuml scenario-077-01
!include sequence-style.plantuml
'categories = SME | connectKit

title 76 - SME connectKit

participant "Bank"       as b
participant "Customer"   as c
participant "Supplier"   as s
participant "MES"        as m
participant "Workcenter" as w

group Order Management
    s ->  c: PriceList
    c ->  s: PurchaseOrder
    s ->  c: AcknowledgePurchaseOrder
end

group Manufacturing
    s ->  m: BOM
    s ->  m: ProductionOrder
    m ->  w: Operation
    w ->  m: WIPStatus
    m ->  s: WIPStatus
    s ->  c: CertificateOfAnalysis
end

group Logistics
    s ->  c: NotifyShipment
    c ->  s: ReceiveDelivery
end

group Finance
    s ->  c: Invoice
    c --> b: ISO 20022 Payment Authorization
    c ->  s: RemittanceAdvice
end

show footbox
@enduml