Software vendors promise: “Business mashups enable business users to create applications which automate their important business processes – without having to write a single line of code.” Are “business mashups” just hype, or are they valid options in the SOA world?

A mashup can be defined as a kind of “mishmash”. The idea behind it is to combine data and functions from various sources in new ways, then to make the results available again on the Internet or intranet. Basically, business mashups themselves are a mixture of results from a long development process in the areas lean management, business process automation, Web 2.0, and service-oriented architecture.

In the beginning was lean management

At the beginning of the 1990s, the authors James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, scientists at MIT, examined the differences in the development and production conditions in the automotive industry as part of the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP). They published the results of their work under the title, “The Machine That Changed the World”. Inspired by the modern production strategies of the ­Japanese ­automotive industry, they defined a series of criteria for an ­efficient and quality-oriented production system which they ­described as lean production.

The utilization of the lean structures, consolidated hierarchies, and continuous quality management was not only attractive for production; it was also possible to transfer the principles to other areas of corporate management. This led to the development of a management system which became known as “lean management”. The major principles are the orientation of all activities to the customer (customer orientation), concentration on one’s own strengths (core competencies), optimization and flexibilization of business processes, continuous improvement of quality (continuous improvement process, CIP), internal ­customer orientation as a guiding principle, and own responsibility, empowerment, and teamwork.