5. Case data and analysis
The authors of this paper conducted a case study to test the proposed evaluation framework. Since, the authors cannot generalise the data derived from a single case study, they suggest that the proposed framework will allow others to relate their experiences to those reported herein. Hence, this paper offers a broader understanding of the phenomenon of EAI evaluation. The empirical data presented here were collected using various data collection methods such as interviews, documentation, and observation. The bias that is considered to be a danger in using a qualitative research approach is overcome in this research through data triangulation. For the purpose of this paper, three types of triangulation are used namely: (a) data [5]; (b) methodological and, (c) interdisciplinary triangulation [11].
The company studied is a large multinational that operates in more than 130 countries and its annual turnover was €33.8 billions. The authors use the name PRODUCER to refer to this company. PRODUCER is divided into four business units/sectors namely: (a) automotive equipment; (b) communication technology; (c) consumer goods and, (d) capital goods. It has an IT infrastructure that consists of more than 2000 legacy systems, 100 ERP applications and 125 e-business modules. The company run a pilot project to test whether EAI supports a robust IT infrastructure that achieves: (a) closer collaboration with customers and suppliers and, (b) better coordination of business processes and supply chains. The project was focusing on the integration of 12 business processes including supply chain management, customer and supplier relationship management.
At a technical level, EAI was adopted to piece together PRODUCER's customers and suppliers with its business units. For that reason, PRODUCER developed one EAI infrastructure in each business unit and one among business units, customers and suppliers. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the EAI infrastructure integrates the SAP R/3 system with custom-built systems that deal with material management. At an inter-organisational level, it incorporates systems that are based at PRODUCER's suppliers and customers and are used to automate common business processes. SAP R/3 and its module that supports advanced planner optimiser (APO) function in an integrated way, since SAP R/3 is an integrated suite. This means that all SAP modules are internally integrated with the core system. Also, APO is unified with material management and other systems (e.g. customers) through the integration infrastructure.