Hi Steve, Walmart and their supplier may provide or use a service, but they aren't services. I don't think benefit of loosely coupling is the ability to more easily change suppliers. IMHO, I think it's more of being able to change services and relationship between them. As an example, I think Walmart is experimenting with RFID. The change from barcode to RFID may involve change in how shipment/recieve/purchase order are processed. If the currently system is tightly coupled, this change in technology will require major modification to the current software/system to obtain the maximum benefit from the new technology.
Cheers, H.Ozawa Steve Jones wrote: > I'd also say that people mean that loose coupling/cohesion is true for > certain things (e.g. Wallmart can change their suppliers, but the > suppliers can't easily change from Wallmart), given the amount of > legal effort involved in these relationships (a survey last year put > 30% of the cost of retail in the retailer/supplier interactions) then > there is a much higher degree of inertia that makes things tightly > coupled and change unlikely. >
