Npower standardises processes

Electricity and gas supplier RWE Npower is standardising its business processes in a bid to increase efficiency and improve its view of operations, states CIO.

The utility, which trades simply as Npower in the UK, is using IDS Scheer ARIS software, a business process management tool, in order to identify and track existing processes, and set standards.

A standardisation of processes had become necessary as the group was formed out of numerous acquisitions and had a fragmented view of operations.

Implementation of business process management and service-oriented architecture to replace legacy batch processing is helping speed inventory data to sales representatives at Fastenal, a distribution company for industrial fasteners and related products, says Search SOA.

The Fastenal project uses Active Endpoint's ActiveVOS visual orchestration tool to link Web services and set up the business processes.

"Once you understand the principles of service-oriented architecture, it's easy to use ActiveVOS to deploy new services," said Adam Swift, integration developer for the BPM order tracking system at Fastenal. "Business process can be created with drag-and-drop."

LexisNexis is to integrate ChoicePoint as part of its transformation, following the recent completion of the $4.1 billion purchase of ChoicePoint by LexisNexis' parent company, Reed Elsevier, reports MarketWatch.

The integration of ChoicePoint represents a major milestone in LexisNexis' transformation into a provider of customised content and analytic and workflow solutions for legal and risk professionals.

ChoicePoint, a provider of decision-making technology and information, will become part of the LexisNexis Risk and Information Analytics Group.