James Taylor's Decision Management

Michael Lee over on Bob Glushko's blog posted about an article he saw on UPS going paperless in its international shipping. This is a great example of a rules-driven application. Think about it. There are rules about which paperwork/information is required for which countries in which circumstances. These rules change whenever any of the participant countries decide they should. There are rules about what kinds of contents require which pieces of paperwork for which countries. Larger companies using the service probably have their own rules about billing. Add to all of this the problems of returns (many companies ship from one location but expect returns to go to another, potentially based on the content of the package). Unless these rules are externalized and managed the system would be completely unmanageable.