Re: [sahana-maindev] Inventory Management, Logistics and Supply Chain Management in Sahana

[Mark P. <ma...@gl...>]

Hi Gav--

Thanks for raising these issues.  Very important.  We don't want to lose
them in the details of the module specifications.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gavin Treadgold [mailto:gt...@ke...]
> Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 9:43 PM
> To: Sahana developers' list
> Subject: Re: [sahana-maindev] Inventory Management, Logistics and
> Supply Chain Management in Sahana
> 
> Following up very briefly on Chamindra's comments...
> On 2009-02-17, at 0814, Chamindra de Silva wrote:
> 
> > I think SahanaPy, though it has a lot of merits will still take a
> > while to mature and since we need that inventory module ASAP, I would
> > continue with your code on PHP for now and work on getting that into
> > the next stable release (lets not waste that code you done so far!).
> > Of course Fran might beg to differ ;-)
> 
> 
> I would go a step further and say this, and it is a message I'm going
> to start beating elsewhere wrt Sahana.
> 
> I would say that some of the critical success factors to getting
> logistics (the process, not the modules) working are:
> 
>   * developing a logistics information exchange format
>   * developing discovery and web services standards for logistics
> servers

Generally I agree but I think developing standards and formats may be beyond
what Sahana is about, though it would be interesting to see Sahana lead here
- I don't know whether that would ultimately help or hurt the spread of the
use of Sahana.

Sahana should be certainly consistent or compliant with any agree-upon
standards that the UN and NGO community is using for the exchange of data
between their systems, (but I'm not sure there is much agreement there), but
it is not Sahana's mission to set such standards.  

I would suggest that as long as Sahana is following the UNJLC's UNSDI
standards for logistics and transportation data, (see
http://www.logcluster.org/mapcenter/unsdi), we would be meeting the goals
that Gavin suggests here.  And we should ensure that the fields that we
collect are compliant with these standards.  I'll do a thorough review of
the requirements before we get to the coding stage to ensure that this is
so.

Are there other standards that you are aware of that we should be
referencing?  I will put up whatever I find on the wiki so we can include it
in the design specs.

I think we can build our logistics system around with these goals in mind -
and I absolutely agree that it will help spread the Sahana gospel if Sahana
is easy to connect and exchange data with for those organizations using
other data.

Let me also add that we need to build a system that is prepared to import
large amounts of data - whether from other systems directly through web
services, or through standard xml files - as item-by-item data entry is not
how most of these systems get propagated with data (but it is generally how
Sahana is built to accept data).

> 
> These of course will be derived from a good set of requirements.
> 
> With all these, the issue of which platform it is developed on doesn't
> matter, as long as they adhere to the discovery, web services and
> exchange formats.

Agreed.  ;->

> 
> We have to take the bigger picture view here that for logistics to
> work properly, we are going to need to network organisations that are
> running SahanaPHP, SahanaPY, HELIOS, and whatever else may come in the
> future - Sahana P2P anyone?. We have to network as many warehouses and
> welfare centres as possible to accomplish this, and we won't do it
> with just one platform. I would have no problems with a Windows Sahana
> Logistics application if that is what is required as long as it
> adheres to the standards for interoperability, and of course is open
> source and plays well in the Sahana ecosystem. I am all for making use
> of richer UI's to improve user experience.

Absolutely agreed. As we have little ability to control the platform's that
other organization's logistics data may be stored in, I think that as long
as Sahana is using open and interoperable standards for data exchange, we've
done our part.  We may have to build some connectors to Helios (which I
believe is MS .net based, is it not?).  That would be a great GSOC10
project, maybe?

> 
> And, if we are the first to implement these standards, even if they
> are not official, that will give us momentum in seeing them deployed,
> and having influence in further standards development. So, it is in
> our best interest to see multiple versions of logistics implemented,
> and build the glue to connect them.

+1

> 
> Long term - we have to take the view that Sahana is an ecosystem, not
> a PHP server application. Short-term - SahanaPHP is still our biggest
> success and continues to go from strength to strength :)

+1

Right on, brother.

Best regards,
Mark

> 
> Cheers Gav
> 
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