Business Case Study

One of the earlier applications of the Business Rules Engine was an implementation of a Rating Engine for calculating the freight necessary for shipping a package from any point within the United States to any destination, domestic or international.

This application can be used not only in an company's warehouse for shipping product out, but it can also be used in conjunction with a Web site that takes orders from customers across the world and allows those customers to select the best way to have their order shipped to them.

All the rules for calculating the freight for a package of a given weight sent from a given zip code to a given destination were entered into the "Rating Rule Book" in the form of Rules. All restrictions applied and facilities offered by different Carriers (UPS, Fed Ex, etc) were included in the Business Rules.

A Client calling the Server would provide information about the origin and destination addresses, the weight and dimensions of the package and the desired method of shipment. This could be a specific request, such as "UPS ground" which would then return an exact cost for the freight, or it could be a general request such as "Overnight" which would return a list of several methods of shipment that would satisfy the "Overnight" requirement, together with the cost of each.

A typical Client could be a browser-based set of input forms with a human being entering the information at their desktop, or an application program such as an invoice generator that needs to calculate the freight cost for a given customer order to include it in the invoice. In the latter case, the invoicing application is extended to call the Business Rules Engine Server passing the necessary information and receiving back the results using XML. Freight rating rules change often as Carrier fees change, new services are introduced, and old services are modified. Keeping all the Carrier-related rules isolated makes the maintenance of the invoicing application much easier. (For an annual fee, the carrier rules are maintained by enTechnia, and updated to the user base with each change).