Overview of the business flow for the IT architecture of a product company

What's the situation?

Production and sales systems are increasingly complex. Offline and online, product omnichannel, automatic warehouse, product availability, process analysis, collection of sales and business strategic information, delivery optimization, marketing automation…

The goal of this story is to provide guidelines for designing an innovative enterprise architecture. It encompasses from manufacturing a product to analyzing its delivery to the consumer.

Business flow overview

We can group the entire flow from manufacturing of a product to the sales process into these main sections:

1. Conception and pre-production
2. B2B and pre-sales
3. Production and Billing
4. Contents and enrichment
5. Distribution
6. B2C / B2B sale

The following diagram shows the interaction between technology and business processes.

1. Conception and pre-production

This is the first phase that the company encounters.
The software that we use are: PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), BI (Business Intelligence).
The actors are: Designers, Creators and Product managers.
The main functionality are:

• Analysis of the past season. Goal and results obtained
• Analysis of last season's competitors
• Study and invent the product
• Creation of the first sample
• Creation of the digital twin
• Analysis of the supplier
• Pre-engage of the supplier
• Definitive creation of the sample
• Approved of the product and sample

Dictionary:

• Digital twin. Virtual replica of the physical product, it gives us a photography with the product state.
• Sample. Small quantity of a thing (a c. of cloth, wine, marble, etc.) intended to make its quality and properties known, or also intended for tests (a c. of cement, milk, etc.) having the purpose to ascertain their properties, strengths or weaknesses.

2. B2B and pre-sales

The actors are: Product managers and Seller.
The software: PLM, Pre-order software, BI e CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
The main functionality are:

• Create a product catalog
• Enrich and complete each product informations
• Create or update the customer list for your target
• Create or update the price list
• Update the pre-order software
• Distribute pre-order software to customers
• Contact and help the customer
• Collect customer orders

3. Production and Billing

The actors are: Product managers and Seller.
The software: PLM, Pre-order software, BI e CRM.
The main functionality are:

• Customer order analysis
• Create or update BOM (bill of materials)
• Activate supplier management
• Production cost management
• Start and control the production of the products
• Management of InBound products
• The orders range from PLM to ERP
• Billing management

Dictionary:

• BOM. A bill of materials (BOM) is a comprehensive inventory of the raw materials, assemblies, subassemblies, parts and components, as well as the quantities of each needed to manufacture a product. In a nutshell, it is the complete list of all the items that are required to build a product.

4. Contents and enrichment

The actors are: Product managers, Project manager and Content creator.
The software: PIM (Product Information Management) & DAM (Digital Asset Management).
The main functionality are:

• Create contents like commercial description, size description, etc
• Create products images & Lifestyle images
• Translate the contents in different languages
• Update contents and images in the system
• Update contents and images ready to delivery
• Insert or upgrade the category product for each sale channel

5. Distribution

The actors are: Product managers, Warehouse worker & administrative.
The software: ERP, Warehouse software & OMS.
The main functionality are:

• Orders range from ERP to warehouse software
• Orders range from ERP to OMS
• Create a lists to distribution the products to each sale channels
• Create pricing lists to each sale channels and customers
• Suppliers ship products
• Start the InBound Process
• The products are stored in warehouse
• The products are checked and ready for delivery
• Update systems with status of the products
• Creation and confirmation of OutBound orders
• Start the OutBound Process

Dictionary:

• InBound Process. The processes involved in moving materials or goods into a supply chain, and securing inventory that your business later sells.
• OutBound Process. The processes involved in moving finished inventory out of a supply chain by fulfilling and shipping orders to end customers.

6. B2C / B2B sale

The actors are: Administrative, Store manager & Warehouse worker.
The software: ERP, Warehouse software, OMS & eCommerce platform.
The main functionality are:

Start the InBound Process of the physical products
Ad hoc flow

So we will have different processes for each platform or sales method:

• Store
• Ecommerce
• Market place

For each platform or method we will write the dedicated flow. 
I will insert the list of stories below:

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Insights?

If you have any questions or corrections, please contact me.

Document version
Version: 1.0 - Last update: 27/07/2023 - Author: Corrado Facchini

About me

https://www.linkedin.com/in/corrado-facchini-8948553b/