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N-iX > Case Studies > Accelerating Digital Transformation for a Global Fashion Retailer
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Accelerating Digital Transformation for a Global Fashion Retailer

Technology Category
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Event-Driven Application
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
  • Buildings
  • Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions
  • Product Research & Development
  • Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
  • Construction Management
  • Inventory Management
Services
  • System Integration
  • Testing & Certification
The Challenge

The client, a leading global fashion retailer, was in the midst of a digital transformation journey. The challenge was to improve their existing legacy systems and develop new tools to accelerate this transformation. The legacy promotion management system, a desktop application used to manage promotions, lacked flexibility and could not keep up with the company's needs. It involved the use of several programs, and the client needed a unified app that would allow them to create an end-to-end promotion process. Additionally, the client required the development of a proposal management system for buyers. The buyers used excel tables and manually entered data to create proposals of goods they needed in their shops, including their quantity and the time when they needed them. The client wanted to reduce the amount of manual work and automate this process.

About The Customer

The client is one of the world's largest fashion retailers with multiple brands selling in over 200 markets. They operate through thousands of stores and an online platform. The client was in the middle of a digital transformation journey, aiming to improve efficiency and automate internal processes and systems. Among the processes that needed improvement was the client's legacy promotion management system, which lacked flexibility and could not keep up with the company's needs. The client also required the development of a proposal management system for buyers, a group of people managing the promotion process.

The Solution

The N-iX team redesigned the existing promotion management system into a microservices architecture and developed a new proposal management system. For the promotion management system, the team designed a microservices architecture to ensure app scalability. They applied the “Hello production!” approach, configured all the environments, set up the CI/CD pipeline, and implemented the QC automation process from scratch. The team also integrated the system with over 40 services to align with all the client's processes. For the proposal management system, the team designed the architecture of the entire solution, released the MVP in three sprints, and moved on to the development of a full-fledged app. The app integrates with 10 services and a database in MariaDB was designed and created. The team also introduced API and UI automation tests, with unit tests covering over 65% of the entire code.

Operational Impact

  • The new solutions developed by the N-iX team have significantly improved business efficiency by automating many processes and reducing required manual work. The promotion management system replaced multiple applications and significantly accelerated the process of managing promotions. The proposal management system automated the manual process of creating proposals, significantly accelerating the buyers' work. The microservices architecture of the promotion management system allows for easy scaling of the solution to other countries. The ability to create drafts and approval flow has reduced manual work. The 'Hello, production' approach validated the suitability of the system’s initial infrastructure requirements and the release processes needed to get code running with that infrastructure, providing the team with feedback on what’s required to get any new infrastructure up and running in production.

Quantitative Benefit

  • Unit tests cover over 65% of the entire code, reducing the risk of bugs and errors.

  • The promotion management system integrates with over 40 services, ensuring alignment with all the client's processes.

  • The proposal management system integrates with 10 services, aligning with the client's processes.

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IoT System for Tunnel Construction
The Zenitaka Corporation ('Zenitaka') has two major business areas: its architectural business focuses on structures such as government buildings, office buildings, and commercial facilities, while its civil engineering business is targeted at structures such as tunnels, bridges and dams. Within these areas, there presented two issues that have always persisted in regard to the construction of mountain tunnels. These issues are 'improving safety" and "reducing energy consumption". Mountain tunnels construction requires a massive amount of electricity. This is because there are many kinds of electrical equipment being used day and night, including construction machinery, construction lighting, and ventilating fan. Despite this, the amount of power consumption is generally not tightly managed. In many cases, the exact amount of power consumption is only ascertained when the bill from the power company becomes available. Sometimes, corporations install demand-monitoring equipment to help curb the maximum power demanded. However, even in these cases, the devices only allow the total volume of power consumption to be ascertained, or they may issue warnings to prevent the contracted volume of power from being exceeded. In order to tackle the issue of reducing power consumption, it was first necessary to obtain an accurate breakdown of how much power was being used in each particular area. In other words, we needed to be able to visualize the amount of power being consumed. Safety, was also not being managed very rigorously. Even now, tunnel construction sites often use a 'name label' system for managing entry into the work site. Specifically, red labels with white reverse sides that bear the workers' names on both sides are displayed at the tunnel work site entrance. The workers themselves then flip the name label to the appropriate side when entering or exiting from the work site to indicate whether or not they are working inside the tunnel at any given time. If a worker forgets to flip his or her name label when entering or exiting from the tunnel, management cannot be performed effectively. In order to tackle the challenges mentioned above, Zenitaka decided to build a system that could improve the safety of tunnel construction as well as reduce the amount of power consumed. In other words, this new system would facilitate a clear picture of which workers were working in each location at the mountain tunnel construction site, as well as which processes were being carried out at those respective locations at any given time. The system would maintain the safety of all workers while also carefully controlling the electrical equipment to reduce unnecessary power consumption. Having decided on the concept, our next concern was whether there existed any kind of robust hardware that would not break down at the construction work site, that could move freely in response to changes in the working environment, and that could accurately detect workers and vehicles using radio frequency identification (RFID). Given that this system would involve many components that were new to Zenitaka, we decided to enlist the cooperation of E.I.Sol Co., Ltd. ('E.I.Sol') as our joint development partner, as they had provided us with a highly practical proposal.
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