I’ve recently scanned the EP-TS use cases to see how they might be applicable to SAF (per suggestion from Brian Connell at West Global). Before I respond to Brian, could everyone take a quick look at my summaries and offer any feedback.
Use Case 1: Fraud Mgmt in Retail
- Summary: Detect theft in retail environment, e.g. returning items that weren’t purchased.
- Current solutions: Surveillance, RFID, etc. Largely ineffective due to isolated systems and historical nature.
- Sources of Symptoms: Sales data, Customer data, Security data
- SAF applicability: Seems that every retailer has a proprietary system to thwart fraud. Most of these systems rely on some decision/action logic which could be codified into a SAF catalog for the benefit of all retailers.
Use Case 2: Activity Monitoring (West Global’s use case)
- Summary: A retailer tracks activities for a particular merchandise: pre-pay sales and post-pay sales, as either a new sale or an upgrade. Event system tracks “actual vs expected” and alerts when there is a discrepancy.
- Current solutions: West Global’s own Business Activity suite (along with many many competitors).
- Sources of Symptoms: The discrepancy alerts.
- SAF applicability: This use case doesn’t really traverse boundaries. The SAF use case starts where this use case leaves off… when the discrepancy alert is generated (as a SAF symptom). For example, an unexpected decline in upgrades coupled with an increase in customer help desk incidents might trigger some action??
Use Case 3: First responders (Oracle)
- Summary: Accident occurs. Call to 911 automatically dispatches closest police, paramedics, tow truck. Highway traffic signs are automatically updated to warn of accident.
- Current solutions: Proprietary 911 systems
- Sources of Symptoms: 911 incident, policy/paramedic/two truck status.
- SAF applicability: This is similar to the Fast Flowers Delivery use case. Oracle talks about a ‘registry’ that matches publishers to consumers, kind of a ‘plug n play’ effect. The SAF catalog acts as that ‘registry’, bridging cross-domain symptoms to a well-known set of actions (ie: dispatch police, etc).
Use Case 4: Facility Safety (IBM)
- Summary: Track every person in a facility via RFID for purposes of security and safety.
- Current Solutions: Proprietary RFID tracking software.
- Sources of Symptoms: RFID chips/scanners
- SAF applicability: The IBM use case talks about recognizing well-known patterns such as: visitor too far away from escort; person in restricted area; and so forth. Again, these are patterns that could be codified in a SAF catalog and re-used.