Enterprise service bus for Zoetis

According to the original requirements presented by the client, BlueSoft’s task was to create more efficient ways of communicating between existing systems.

The transformation was supposed to involve minimal changes to existing systems and to maximize business and budget benefits.
Due to Zoetis’ scale of operations – it is a leader in animal health care on more than 100 markets – it was necessary to scale each and every aspect of the project in terms of:

• differences between particular markets and possible standardization, both in terms of operations and IT architecture
• operating in a multicultural environment and in most time zones
• adjusting the means of communication to the scope of responsibility on the part of the client’s staff assigned to the project

Another element arising from the complexity of the project was the number of systems used both on a global, regional and local scale and the number of maintenance models, oftentimes based on vendors from all over the world.

The process began from decomposing the task at hand, understanding our client’s business needs and establishing priorities.

The defined assumptions of the transformation phase included:

• standardizing the manufacturing process (governance)
• creating clear assumptions for communication among systems (guidelines)
• creating a universal-access knowledge repository containing information regarding existing architecture and planned alterations using the phase approach (integration repository)
• implementing tools responsible for development automation and monitoring (continuous integration).

Taking into consideration the fact that the schedule was very tight and the work environment much dispersed (planned coverage of more than 50 markets), what posed a yet another challenge was appropriate team scaling and task planning.

Due to close cooperation of business analysts and architects working on creating the integration strategy with best practices and design patterns in mind, we were able to create the project phasing guidelines in a timely fashion and commence development work (enterprise integration strategy).

Our objective was to see the first effects, visible on the part of the business side, as soon as possible and to implement processes allowing to iterate within the clients’ technical departments.