For our client, processing data for its print and fulfilment system was a complex and time-consuming task, requiring significant manual intervention and prone to error. Data was received from clients in a variety of inconsistent formats, and with many of their customers tied into internal database systems and unable (or unwilling) to provide data in a standard format there was strong business need to make the process more efficient, and more accurate.

The business operation comprised a high volume of small orders, so time spent manually translating data or correcting errors was costly.

The first stage of the project was to fully understand the data processing task – how “ideal” data was managed, the multiple variants of data format, and the exceptions to the data processing rules.

WyeTec designed a complex but versatile system that allowed for each customer’s data to be mapped to a standard format, with a series of processing functions and validity checks. Each customer was assigned a hot folder, into which they could place orders for fulfilment.

A processing server monitors the hot folders for new files. On receipt of an order, the system performs a series of validity checks, and either enters the file on the system as a job to process or, if the data had validation errors in it, rejects it and flags the errors.

A client application allows operators to view jobs, authorise them for fulfilment, or reject them if necessary.

The entirety of this side of our client’s operations have now been successfully migrated to the new system, saving our client money and enabling them to fulfil orders more efficiently.