Processing Huge Amounts of Data

Benefits

1. 1.Greater Volume Handling: Adeptia’s data exchange solution gives Karmak the ability to deal with thousands of files in a quick, easy manner.
2. 2.Reliable connection between Karmak’s original equipment manufacturers and retailers: Allows Karmak to respond to client needs and make changes much faster.
3. 3.Streamlined AI mapping, data transfer: Adeptia receives files, performs mapping functions, changes formats, and transfers data to another source.
4. 4.Formatting changes: Karmak uses Adeptia to send the same file format Karmak’s software creates, then perform the necessary formatting changes.

The Challenge

As a leading provider of business management solutions for the commercial transportation industry, Karmak outputs tens of thousands of files per day, sending information to and from dealers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in order to keep inventories up to date and ensure that orders are received and responded to in a timely manner.

This can be a complicated process, involving several steps: Karmak receives the dealer file type (from a text file inventory). Karmak processes the file. Streamlined AI mapping, data transfer: Adeptia receives files, performs mapping functions, changes formats, and transfers data to another source. Karmak sends the file to the OEM. The order is then created to supply merchandise to replenish the dealer’s inventory. Karmak picks up the order file, then sends that file to the dealer. Though the files Karmak is processing are sent only once or twice per day, because of the sheer volume of files, that data is sent all day long, every day of the week – including weekends.

Making matters more complex complex is the fact that Karmak needs to have certain files formatted for a variety of different integrations and to follow the specific OEM standards. Once those files have been formatted and pushed over, the OEMs then create orders, and Karmak pulls them back and sends them to the dealers. And that’s just one small piece of the process.

How Karmak’s process works

1. 1.Karmak gets parts inventory data from a dealer, with the quantity they have on-hand and how many they’ve sold.
2. 2.Karmak processes that information into a text file.
3. 3.That text file then gets sent to the original eqipment manufacturer, which creates an order…
4. 4.…so the retailer can refill its inventory. (In many cases, they’ve been selling as much as 10,000 parts each day.)

The Business Value

Karmak uses Adeptia to process and transmit large amounts of data between the dealerships and the OEMs. That means Adeptia is continually processing files for Karmak, all day long, seven days a week. Karmak currently runs more than 200 total integrations through Adeptia, each involving hundreds of individual files. That adds up to tens of thousands of files per day processed through Adeptia’s platform, from dealers to OEMs and back again.

Here’s how the process works: Karmak gets a file of inventory data from a dealer, listing hundreds of thousands of parts and showing both the quantity they have on-hand and how many they’ve sold recently. Karmak takes that information and processes it into a text file.

That file then gets sent to the OEM, which creates an order so the retailer can replenish the inventory on its shelves. In many cases, they’ve been selling as much as 10,000 parts each day, and this process ensures they can get those parts back in their inventory.

“I don’t know how we’d handle that much volume if we didn’t have Adeptia software running it.” said Greg Rookey, Partner Solutions Analyst at Karmak. Adeptia is a “very critical piece of the whole equation” for Karmak, said Dave Evans, Partner Solutions Senior Analyst. If Adeptia goes down, it affects all the dealers and OEMs Karmak works with, so if any piece of the process isn’t working, they hear from their clients immediately.

“But things have been going great lately,” Evans said.

Before Adeptia, Karmak’s data exchange process was complicated by the fact that Karmak’s partners and OEMs were coming back to Karmak and saying they needed a different format. But, because Karmak was trying to be consistent across its software, that software generated the file in the same format, no matter who it was for.

To address that issue, rather than go back and change all of its product code to write the different codes for the different partners, Karmak used Adeptia to send the same bucketed file format that Karmak software generates, then has Adeptia perform the formatting changes that are needed.

Those changes required by Karmak’s partners are one of the main reasons the company implemented Adeptia’s solution. Before that, the company was sending it directly from its business system to the partner in question.

Partnering with Adeptia

Karmak said Adeptia’s real value is that it provides a reliable, constant feed back and forth between the OEM’s and retailers Karmak works with.

“In a nutshell, what Adeptia does for us is receive a file from one source, do some mapping to change the format and send it to another source,” Greg Rookey said. “That’s basically 90 percent of what we’re using Adeptia for”.

The Future

Karmak is currently looking into other aspects of its data exchange where Adeptia’s AI-driven solution could be utilized to streamline the process even further. “We’re reaching out to a lot of different areas of our company and just trying to figure out how we can help them eliminate some manual things that they may be doing today,” said Bob Bremer, DevOps Data Engineer at Karmak.