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Visibility into Warehouse App Improves Delivery Time to Customers
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Retail
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases
- Inventory Management
- Warehouse Automation
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The main challenge for this customer was resolving performance issues related to a proprietary application used in their regional distribution center locations. These centers were responsible for shipping products both to the retail store locations as well as delivering orders placed online directly to customers. The application wasn’t scanning inventory being compiled on conveyer belts in the centers properly, causing containers to be loaded more slowly and delaying shipments from going out in a timely fashion. The risk to the business was considerable. Slowdowns of this nature can be crippling for a retail business, delaying shipping times and causing stores to suffer inventory challenges. Customers won’t wait when a product isn’t in stock, they will just go buy it somewhere else. Revenue loss and bottom line impact is a direct effect of these technical challenges with shifts in customer loyalty as they find faster service when they explore other retailer options.
About The Customer
This North American hardware chain has thousands of retail locations across the US, Canada, and Mexico. More than 300,000 employees take care of millions of customers a year, generating billions of dollars in revenue. Hundreds of thousands of products are available online or in stores. As such, the business depends on IT to ensure that services are running well, to ensure that stores are stocked, distribution centers are running, and the website maintains up to date inventory and stocking information. Both off the shelf and custom applications are used to support the business.
The Solution
To address this challenge, this long-time customer turned to NETSCOUT. The NetOps team deployed an InfiniStreamNG appliance in the distribution center to provide end-toend visibility into application performance. The smart data generated by the InfiniStreamNG appliance is converted into smarter analytics by the nGeniusONE service Assurance platform. Extracted from rich wire data, these analytics are displayed in custom service dashboards showing at-a-glance views into critical business applications and services. Service Dependency Maps are used to graphically illustrate client-server communications paths and help NetOps understand what servers an application is trying to talk to. With the help of the NETSCOUT solution, NetOps was able to map out the service dependencies and identify the traffic paths the application was taking and which upstream servers it was communicating with. Using this view, they uncovered several issues they weren’t expecting, which helped them identify and resolve the disruptions they were facing.
Operational Impact
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