A Manufacturer of Car Spare Parts Visualized Huge Spreadsheets and Automated Manual Updates

Description

A global manufacturer of automotive components turned to Altoros to visualize relations across vehicle models and spare parts, as well as to automate software updates.

Brief results of cooperation:

• The customer has got a scalable control—the tool’s matrix grid renders 715+ million elements in 560 ms, which is 2x faster than requested.
• The company can now automatically update its propriety software—used by 300+ enterprise customers—in a click.
• New project management add-ons can be seamlessly integrated with the software in a simplified way.

The customer

Headquartered in Japan, the company is a leading supplier of automotive technology, systems, and components for major automakers. The customer’s products include igniting solutions, electric generators, air compressors, heating plugs, navigation systems, etc. Operating globally, the company employs 170,000 people in 35 countries.

The need

The customer wanted to develop a control plane featuring a matrix that would simulate and visualize relations across vehicle-related data and car parts. In particular, the solution needed to be capable of illustrating and verifying the compatibility of car models with spare parts, accessories, service equipment, etc.

The challenges

Under the project, the team at Altoros had to address the following issues:

• The system must not exceed the speed of 1,000 ms while rendering the matrix of 10,000x10,000 cells, as well as must not exceed 200 ms to respond to user interactions (e.g., scrolling, resizing a matrix grid, choosing elements, etc.).
• The company also had a proprietary project management software (written in ASP.NET) actively used by its enterprise customers. The customer wanted to automate the manual process of updating the tool for its end users.
• The software was frequently used by 300+ enterprises together with other similar project management tools. So, the company wanted to develop a functionality that would allow for seamless integration without losing any of the features behind the solutions synchronized.

Looking for strong .NET expertise, the company turned to Altoros to deliver the visual control plane and one-click functionality for software updates.

The solution

Solution #1. To visualize relations across vehicle models and car parts, the team:

• Delivered a control plane comprising a matrix (two trees and a grid), as well as an editor to set data-related parameters and change a matrix style.
• Implemented five types of relations across elements: direct, inverse, no correlation, bidirectional relation, and relation impossibility.
• Ensured the solution did not exceed the 1,000 ms limit to render a 10,000×10,000 matrix, which could be resized to 26,754×26,754 cells maximum (715,776,516 elements) rendered in 560 ms.
• Achieved 123 ms for the system to respond to user actions.
• Minimized RAM usage by storing relations between elements as bit fields and objects selected as a range of coordinates that could be utilized again, rather than rendered anew.

Solution #2. To automate manual software updates, our engineers:

• Introduced the autoupdate functionality comprising a web interface for system admins and an installer agent to upload/download updates in a click.
• Made it possible to automatically update the software deployed both on a single server or a cluster of servers—since the project management tool can be deployed on multiple servers.
• Delivered the integration builder that ensured smooth sync between project management solutions and enabled to quickly add any other similar tool to the bundle.

The outcome

Partnering with Altoros, the customer focused on its core manufacturing processes—by delegating expertise in software product development. The company has got a scalable control plane can now visualize relations between vehicles and car parts. The tool’s matrix grid can be resized to 26,754×26,754 cells and render 715+ million elements in 560 milliseconds, which is 2x faster than requested.

The organization also automated manual updates of its proprietary project management software. Used by 300+ enterprise customers, the tool can be updated in a click across a cluster of servers. Now, new project management add-ons can be seamlessly integrated with the software in a simplified way.