Making True Real-Time Business Decisions

In his last RTInsights blog post entitled “Real-Time Communication within Web Applications,” RTInsights blogger Tim Vibbert mentioned the use of a Business Rule Management System (BRMS) for a project that he has been working on for several years for a client. Here, Vibbert reexamines the current implementation of the BRMS.

The current implementation of a project I’ve been working on for several years for a client allows for changing sort types of business rules near real-time. But for those associated with decision tables, my client cannot change calculation formulas or add new business rules in the same time frame. This is a product of the architecture of the BRMS that was selected and the nature of the client’s internal environment.

I have been reexamining the current implementation of the BRMS. I have determined that, while the technical implementation is not optimal and was performed by the client’s engineering staff, the more critical issue is that the implementation does not account for the client business organization being involved; it only focuses on business rules and not the business process.

The engineering organization is responsible for managing the business rules in this situation. They receive the business rules from the business organization and then follow a standard, waterfall-oriented software life cycle in order to implement the business rule or rules after determining if a change is warranted. This detracts from the near real-time nature of business rule decisions and updates as well as removes the organization closest to the business from the decision to implement the rule changes.

Business Decisions in True Real-Time

A true real-time operational decision solution would also include automating business processes and examining the events associated with those processes. In the case of this current project, when someone completed a fitness test, through the use of real-time communications, the data could be transferred by passing by a Bluetooth access point wearing a Bluetooth-enabled monitoring device. The data then stored for the next event, processing the data to be triggered. Once the data enters into the processing phase, the associated business rules for calculating final scores could be applied. Then the results are stored for future business analytics and a host of other application needs.

If one of the rules for calculating a score needs to be modified, a business process owner can modify the rule in real-time without requiring an engineer, and the entire process around managing fitness data and calculating scores can be automated and in real-time.