Chapter 1. Case Study
I only solve the toughest of cases. Bring it on!
Life without context is like a boat without sails. Context helps us focus on the work at hand; it gives us a sense
of direction and a reason to achieve something worthwhile! Architecture, as it applies to the fields of
information technology (IT) and computer engineering, also needs a reason for existence. It cries out loud to be
instantiated, to be fulfilled, to see itself being realized—contributing to solve real-world problems.
In this chapter, I describe a fictitious case study to illustrate a problem statement. And although I will make
no such claim, don’t be surprised if you happen to bump into a similar challenge in the real world! A case study
that describes a real-world problem will help provide some context against the backdrop of which the elements
of IT or software architecture can see itself being brought to life—an objective raison d’être for software
architecture!
The Business Problem
Best West Manufacturers (BWM), Inc., a heavy equipment manufacturing company, has primarily been in
the legacy business of manufacturing machinery and heavy equipment with an established customer base.
The industry outlook and independent analyst research reports have predicted that BWM’s opportunities to
grow its market share, through the addition of new customer contracts for buying its equipment, may be quite
limited in the coming years.
A concerned board of directors met behind closed doors for a significant portion of two consecutive weeks.
After much deliberation and several brainstorming sessions, the outcome was summarized and communicated
to the company’s senior leadership as a business directive: focus on gaining significantly larger mind- and
wallet-share of the aftermarket expenses of the current customer base.
The company’s C-level executives analyzed the directive and deemed it critical to channel the focus on
offering more services to the customers. This meant that BWM would be offering more value-added services
along with the sales of the equipment itself. The value-added services would be targeted at helping the
customers maximize their production through efficient use of the machines, reducing unplanned maintenance
downtimes, and predicting failures well ahead of their actual occurrences.
The Technical Challenge
To support a set of high-valued services along with the fleet of machines, BWM needed a state-of-the-art IT
System as a foundational backbone. There was a distinct lack of in-house IT expertise to conceptualize,
formulate, architect, design, and build such a robust enterprise-scale system.
Some of the challenges that were immediately apparent were
• Lack of in-house software development skills and expertise
• Lack of exposure to the current state-of-the-art technologies
• Lack of exposure, experience, and expertise in software development methodologies
• Lack of an IT infrastructure to host an enterprise class system
The technical team, with sponsorship and support from the business, decided to hire a consulting firm to
assist them in their transformation journey. And they did!
Focusing on the solution, the consulting firm started by picking up a set of usage scenarios, subsequently
formalized into use cases, that would collectively provide appropriate understanding and appreciation of the
complexity, criticality, and capabilities supported by the solution to be built.
Some of the key use cases are described in this chapter. However, the use cases presented here
• Are primarily business use cases
• Represent only a small subset of the actual number of use cases
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