Restaurant Franchise Data Catalog

CASE STUDY

5-MINUTE READ

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Our Client

IPC, Independent Purchasing Cooperative, is the purchasing and services cooperative for Subway® Franchisees. IPC drives profitability for Subway® Franchise Owners by delivering a continuous supply of quality products at the lowest possible cost and by providing world-class service and supply chain solutions that support Subway® restaurants.

The Challenge at Hand

IPC services 10,000 franchisees and appropriately 24,000 restaurants in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. With that amount of volume and disparate data coming in from each franchisees/restaurant and each having their own local supply chain requirements, as not all Subway’s serve the same produce items, IPC realized the need to modernize their technology with the addition of a data catalog.

IPC needed a business data catalog that was able to capture the specializations of global trade items that related to

Products: Something sold in a Subway store, something used to make the product in the store, or something to support the store or IPC operations, including metrics such as item count, pallet count, cost per item, shipping cost, warehouse cost, standard product build cost, date/time of event.
Locations: Subway stores, suppliers or manufacturers that provided approved Subway items to distribution centers, that supply one or more stores or Subway locations, related to a franchisee owner in most cases.

Innovative Solutions Unleashed

IPC wanted to improve sales, product orders, receipts, and deliveries by having a data catalog to enable metadata management to show content, lineage, latest processing and ingestion metrics of all data sources required for reporting and analysis that were housed within IPC’s data warehousing system and managed through AWS components and manual intervention. Furthermore, data needed to be documented, consolidated and organized.

IPC selected Semarchy xDM for their business data catalog platform. To solve their consolidation of fragmented data issue and provide data stewards with valuable insights into various aspects of data, IPC partnered with D3Clarity to build a robust data catalog.

Transformative Results Achieved

D3Clarity successfully designed, developed, and deployed the data catalog in 14 weeks, thus transforming IPC’s data management practices. Key milestones included:

Assessment of Needs & Definition:

D3Clarity initiated the project by conducting interactive workshops with IPC’s key stakeholders. These workshops served as a crucial foundation for understanding IPC’s data ecosystem. Key terms, environmental constraints, data challenges, and unique requirements were identified during this phase. Additionally, initial metadata was collected, profiled, and validated to gain a comprehensive understanding of IPC’s data landscape.

Project Planning:

D3Clarity adopted an agile methodology to plan the project, ensuring a tailored roadmap for seamless execution. This approach provided transparency and progress tracking at every stage, allowing IPC to stay engaged and informed throughout the project’s lifecycle.

Design & Configuration:

A critical step in the project was the creation of a comprehensive data model tailored to meet IPC’s metadata requirements. D3Clarity configured migration features to import initial metadata from prepared Excel spreadsheets, facilitating the enhancement of the data platform’s metadata. Notably, the project segregated IT and Business data steward roles to streamline workflows based on the type of data request.

Key achievements included:

Design of a flexible data model that lays the foundation for a data catalog that can be used with any object within IPC’s management domain.
Implementation of initial Data Governance Workflows to manage requests for objects.
Establishment of a data dictionary for standardized terminology and definitions.
Data standards were implemented, thus enabling a data governance framework from which other initiatives can draw from.

Integration:

To ensure the data catalog remained synchronized with IPC’s existing data warehouse platform within AWS, D3Clarity integrated the catalog system seamlessly. Real-time transactions from AWS kept the catalog up-to-date, while the data catalog continuously polled S3 inputs for updates on data metrics, time sequences, and error rules. This information was then reflected as metadata for the relevant data catalog objects, enabling data stewards to make informed decisions.

Testing:

D3Clarity placed a strong emphasis on testing to ensure the functionality of the data catalog. Rigorous testing cycles were conducted, and feedback loops were established with stakeholders to identify and proactively manage any functionality issues. This approach ensured the catalog’s reliability and performance met IPC’s high standards.

Solution Deployment:

The deployment phase was executed with discipline and transparency, thanks to a structured weekly sprint cycle. This approach allowed IPC to witness tangible progress regularly and provided an opportunity for real-time adjustments as needed. It ensured that the solution was deployed efficiently and effectively, with minimal disruption to ongoing operations.

DELIVERABLES	BUSINESS VALUE
Data catalog platform integrated within IPC’s AWS environment.	Enhance business self-service reporting as real-time updates from AWS were able to be collected within the data catalog solution
Governance framework applied to the data catalog	Having standards and a single source of truth provided enriched and trusted information.
Customized Business Glossary suitable for IPC’s unique needs.	Customized Business Glossary suitable for IPC’s unique needs.

The collaboration between IPC and D3Clarity resulted in the successful implementation of a data catalog that significantly improved data stewardship and data management within IPC. Through an iterative and agile approach, D3Clarity was able to address IPC’s unique data challenges and deliver a solution that provided unprecedented insights into their data ecosystem. D3Clarity’s approach exemplifies how strategic planning, seamless integration, and rigorous testing can lead to the successful deployment of a data management solution tailored to meet an organization’s specific needs. As a result, IPC’s data stewards can now make more informed decisions, leading to improved business outcomes.