Updated Platform for Customer Facing Printing Solutions

Project

Updated Platform for Customer Facing Printing Solutions

Project Requirements

Our client faced the challenge of delivering quick printing services to a larger office supply and more retail customers. Each customer needed their own customized solution to satisfy their customer base and integrate with their existing systems. In addition, the existing application that our client was using was becoming an increasingly challenging architecture to modify – given the age and technology on which the platform was built. What our client needed was an updated solution to go to market that would allow for 80% of the quick print application to be ready for each customer; at the same time still allowing for each customer to customize specific features. 

Result

Does the platform look like it was envisioned at project inception? In many ways, yes and in some ways no. That is a good thing! Agile organizations build, measure, learn, rinse, and repeat; they don’t just “stick to a plan.” Valuable feedback on what was missing and what needed to change was sought from customers and prospects. The application evolved throughout the project, and this process continues today. The resulting product was handed over to the internal development team of our client with clear instructions to maintain it moving forward. The application is now live as all of the major office supply chain’s traffic is going through the RGB service (Request Gateway Bridge), which is the entry point for all Unified Platform Requests.

The Unified Platform was architected and built so that other divisions within our client are taking advantage and using it for their service offerings. This is being encouraged by our client’s management, both from the technical side, as well as adopting agile as a standard practice. 

Overview

As customers’ specific and individualized needs grow, there is an increasing dependence on up-to-date and flexible technology platforms needed to deliver services that differentiate companies from their competition. This is the situation that our client, an expert, and leader in wholesale personalized printing, faced.

Our client had the beginnings of CUPS, now known as DESIGNworks, and some ideas about a platform to interact with DESIGNworks and a plethora of other configurators when Intertech was brought on board. Intertech’s architect worked closely with the key stakeholders and decision-makers, advocating for a Scrum development process for the project. Getting something this large into production would take some serious effort and, most importantly, unwavering commitment from our client’s leadership. Intertech led a consulting team that set out to architect and build an enterprise-wide service platform called Unified Platform that could process quick print requests for multiple customers. Keeping to the provided timeline, Intertech’s team created the new platform using the Scrum development process. The TFS platform was also extensively used with this project. Throughout the development, Intertech’s team worked closely with the client to make sure they understood how the application functions, enabling them to take the reins.