How to get the most out of TM Forum assets for digital transformation

Commercial context

To become more efficient, agile and versatile through digital transformation programs, CSPs are seeking to harness TM Forum assets such as best practices and APIs, to help them simplify implementation and integration of systems from multiple vendors. To extract the full value of these assets in their current form however requires major investment of time and effort because users need to read many documents to gain an overall understanding of their scope. Underdeveloped relationships between these assets, and with CSPs’ own assets, can also make it hard to use industry best practices. Furthermore, the turnaround time to make changes to TM Forum assets and share improvements can be lengthy, partly because the existing contribution process is not designed to enable multiple members to simultaneously propose changes.

The solution

This is why the Maximizing the value of TM Forum assets using AI and machine-readable models Catalyst has been undertaken. The project team has developed an AI-driven approach to identify and create relationships between existing TM Forum assets such as ETOM, TAM, SID, Functional Framework, SID, Metrics and Open APIs.

The net result is a machine-readable model, known as ‘ODA-as-a-model’, which can be imported into the CSP architectural tool, providing a simple and organized way to identify, access and analyze TM Forum assets, and understand the relationships between each asset based on the TM Forum meta model.

The ODA-as-a-model enables CSPs to create consistent process flows, transform business processes, harness data models, applications and create and manage open APIs with code generation from the machine-readable model. Showing how to link TM Forum assets to enterprise assets, the project demonstrated how members can use ODA-as-a-model to accelerate the creation of their own enterprise digital twins.

During DTW 2024, the project demonstrated:

1- Use of the ‘order-to-payment’ value stream from GB 921E document into a BPMN business process that can be simulated. The team demonstrated how these assets can be combined to analyze the impact and increase the traceability down to the API level, simulate different business scenarios to optimize the target business processes, and find the most cost-effective solution to a business problem.

2- Creation and management of Open APIs and generated code from the model to facilitate the introduction and use of Open APIs after their implementation. Version management of Open APIs from the model was also demonstrated.

3- How members can create an enterprise model with their own information while keeping the link with the TM Forum assets and conserving the ability to update automatically to new versions.

4- How members can contribute back changes to TM Forum assets to accelerate their evolution.

5- The definition of an adoption roadmap based on the maturity of each enterprise, with respect to their architecture modelling and the Open Digital Architecture (ODA).

Application and wider value

This approach used in this Pioneer Innovation Catalyst can substantially reduce the complexity and cost of digital transformation projects. As demonstrated by the use cases it has been applied to so far, it has the potential to enable CSPs to deploy high-quality and sustainable machine-readable architectures in a quick and resource-efficient manner.

With the help of participating CSPs, the project identified the following business value KPIs:

1- Increase adoption of TM Forum assets by members by 50%

2- Reduce time to use TM Forum assets by members from months to days

3- Increase member collaborations by 50%

4- Manage Open APIs from weeks to days

5- 12% average reduction in the total project delivery time

6- 40% decrease in time to market

One of the major findings of the project has been to demonstrate the reusability of solutions: “by using ODA-as-a-model in the future, time to market, as well as reuse of assets, could be improved at NOS” explains João Marques Pombinho, Architecture and Transversal Projects at NOS. Together, participating project members Levio Business and IT Consulting, Bell Canada, BT, NOS, Zayo, Crown Castle, Concertia, Evergent, and TT Advisory have successfully demonstrated enhanced value of the TM Forum assets. Now, the industry can see their true power when transformed into a machine-readable model. This gives them far greater utility and ultimately the ability to solve business problems at a far greater pace. Now, the wider community can be confident that they are in a far stronger position when it comes to using these key industry assets for digital transformation projects, both now and well into the future.