people you can count on® - vertica · invoicing, textile management, and accounts receivable...

–

–

–

–

People You Can Count On®

Analytics in motion

8/31/2016 3Confidential Property of AmeriPride Services Inc.

Using data to optimize the textile services industry


Agenda

• Who are we?

• Who is AmeriPride Services?

• Where we started

• Applying technology

• Data everywhere

• Change is the key

• Questions

• Thank you

8/31/2016 Confidential Property of AmeriPride Services Inc. 4


8/31/2016

Who are we?Tony Ordner

(LinkedIn) Tony is a confirmed technology geek and pc gamer whose interest started when his family bought a TRS-80 Color Computer with 4k of memory and audio cassette storage. Over the years this hobby expanded from keying in basic programs from magazines, to home networking, custom computer builds, programming, and all things technology. He attended the University of Minnesota Duluth with an eye towards computer science, but later shifted to a degree in Criminology. In 1996 a friend reached out to recruit him to a programming position with AmeriPride Services and his hobby became a full time job. During Tony’s 17+ years at AmeriPride he has worked on the route accounting systems, systems integration, reporting, profit analysis, process improvement, and whatever else he could get his hands into. Today he is leading the charge to enable informed decision making through data visualization and standardization.

Shawn Enderlin(LinkedIn)

During Shawn’s 15+ years of experience, he has managed teams, architected data warehouses, designed ETL applications, mentored staff, built QA and change control teams, partnered with BA’s management, and executives to define information strategy roadmaps, and whew! Now he’s the Information Architect at AmeriPride, trying his hand at designing (small) Big Data solutions with Vertica, Informatica, and Tableau. He’s also a long suffering Minnesota Golden Gopher Football season ticket holder.

Confidential Property of AmeriPride Services Inc. 5

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ordner

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-enderlin-b4348b4


8/31/2016

Who is AmeriPride Services?• Headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota

• Started in Lincoln, Nebraska 1889

• More than 115 production facilities and service centers throughout the United States and Canada

• Providing linen, uniforms, floor mats, restroom and cleaning products to nearly 150,000 customers every week.

Our privately held company is still owned and managed by the Steiner family. There are five family members on the Board of Directors and two family members actively involved in the daily operations of the business.



8/31/2016

Where we started

• Decentralized systems – Route accounting– Garment management– Payroll– HR– Security

• Handwritten – Delivery change notes– Hours worked– Equipment tracking– Customer credits


• Hand sorting – Incoming soiled textiles– Outgoing clean textiles– Route optimization

• Delivery route• Truck capacity • Load order

• Excel tracking– Processing poundage– Vacation tracking– Chemical formulas

• Non standard definitions

Manual data consolidation took as much or more time to assemble as to analyze due to the way we used and stored data.

Some examples include:


8/31/2016

Applying TechnologySome examples of how we have applied technology are:• Data Center and infrastructure changes• Centralized Major Systems• Complete Customer Care (C3) Mobile• Customer Portal• Custom and Focused eStores• Automated processing systems• Telematics systems• Routing systems• Electronic handheld devices

We feel that these changes have made us one of North America's most technologically advanced uniform service companies.



8/31/2016

Data Center In 2007


We decided that this was not an acceptable foundation for centralizing our critical business functions.


8/31/2016

Data Center Today


We embraced the cutting edge with our hot aisle containment (HAC) which takes advantage of the natural properties of warm air rising. The HAC system directs the upward airflow to an AC return system such as a drop-ceiling void. The HAC can increase cooling efficiency by 30% or more. We also embraced SAN storage, Blade Servers and VM machines to increase flexibility and improve resource management.


8/31/2016

Building the solid foundation



8/31/2016

Centralized Major Systems• On premise route accounting system that provides

invoicing, textile management, and accounts receivable functionality along with providing web service interfaces which allow us to integrate with our Customer Portal application.

• Human Capital Management cloud solution that provides a self help platform for employee profile changes, leave tracking, recruitment, etc.

• Workforce Management is an onsite automated time tracking system and payroll system that provides electronic time cards and leave tracking.



8/31/2016

Handheld Devices

Electronic handheld devices allow customer service representatives to manage accounts in real time, right from the customer site: • invoicing at point of contact• managing inventory • ordering products • repairing and replacing garments



8/31/2016

Complete Customer Care (C3) MobileC3 Mobile is a proprietary customer service Windows program that is the best in the industry, run by tablets deployed to all of our Customer Service Managers.


“They truly grasped Windows' functionality to create an intuitive, user-friendly application with both online and offline capabilities and were able to create a unique and customer-centric final product that rivals some of the best Windows work we have seen.” - Margaret Arakawa, Microsoft


8/31/2016

Customer Portal



8/31/2016

Custom and Focused eStores

Custom and Focused eStores enable our customers to have a branded home for their direct sale needs. From logo libraries to customized product offerings and employee allowances, we make it easy to keep your employees in the right work wear.



8/31/2016

Automated Sort Systems

Automated textile systems sort and track your products throughout the cleaning process using advanced U/R FID chips and barcoding. This means you get the right product on time, every time.



8/31/2016

Automated Wash Systems

Finishing work is entered into a data collection point instead of tracked in Excel.



8/31/2016

Telematics SystemThe telematics system helps us reduce fuel consumption and increase safety by monitoring driving activity and creating reports, helping identify inefficiencies and modify driving behaviors.



8/31/2016

Routing SoftwareRouting software allows us to manage our routes to be as efficient as possible, enabling us to cut hundreds of thousands of miles driven per year. This saves fuel, wear and tear on vehicles and reduces accidents (via less miles driven) and associated costs for human and equipment repair.



8/31/2016

Data Everywhere


Invoicing

Sales Process

Textile movement

Wash Aisle telemetry

Delivery telemetry

Driver telemetry

Web click stream

Web source

tracking

Error logs

Security logs

Job history


8/31/2016

TransformationTransforming how we use and interact with our data to

focus on what is important.

– Know at a glance how you are doing• Simplified visual interactions, pictures are worth…

• Standard metrics, everyone gets the same swing

• Insight delivered, no decoder ring needed

– Freedom to spend more time doing your job• Certified data, no assembly required

• Any device, any time access

Simplify, Standardize and Automate



8/31/2016

Transforming the Business



Transforming the Data Landscape


Mobile

Portal

ERP

Routing

Wash

- Consolidate & conform: EDW & Marts

- Standardize, Simplify, Automate

- Platform to support Big Data future

Goals:

- Disparate data,many sources

- Existing architecturedid not scale, norwould it serve theanalytical needs of an evolving business

AmeriPride: A mid-size company, common big company problems:


8/31/2016

How to Build an Analytics Foundation• Existing Technology

– Oracle

• New Technology

– Tableau

– Vertica

– Informatica

– Staffing implications

• Transition Plan

– Build Facts & Dimensions in Oracle

(Leverage the familiar)

– Copy tables to Vertica & consume with Tableau

(Get our feet wet)



Architecture Version 1



8/31/2016

So we went live and….

• Performance was BAD

– 7-10 minute response from Tableau

– Project ground to halt


Note: This is a completely (un)realistic capture of the an AmeriPride user’s initial dashboard experience


8/31/2016

So after trying ourselves, we got help from HP Professional Services and….

• Performance ROCKED

– 5-30 second response from Tableau

• HP ROCKED

– Issues resolved within 1 week


Note: This is a completely (un)realistic capture of the an AmeriPride Tableau developer’s experience post improvements


Lessons Learned: Successes

• Successes with Incremental Approach

– Learned Informatica

– Warehouse knowledge

– Vertica introduction

– Tableau showed the business what was possible

• Excitement

• Momentum



8/31/2016

Lessons Learned: Hard Knocks• Vertica is not magic

– Segmentation & sort order

– Eliminate big table joins

– Concurrency

– Testing / Monitoring

• New Hardware Requirements

– VM Configuration

– CPUs

– SAN: shared disk

• Tableau Query Design

– Aggregate Tables

– Push-down to Vertica

• Ask HP for help early and often

– Vertica is very different from Oracle, SQL Server, etc.

– Hard to know what you don’t know



Moving Forward: Version 2


- Small Tables- Minimize rework

Most data in Vertica

Flat = Fast


8/31/2016

Architecture: Future State

100 Tableau Users

5 Second Response Time

Eliminate Oracle

Analytics Sandbox

Data Integrations

C3 Mobile

Textile RFID

Wash & Route



8/31/2016

A solid foundation allows us to set our Analytics plans in motion


Customer Service

Predicting quits

Voice of the customer alerts

Customer Service Manager (CSM) Customer visits

Customer Service Representative (CSR)

effectiveness

Inventory management

Price management

Delivery logistics

Product recovery

Dock time

Delivery density

Safety

Resource conservation

Product

Providing the right product for the right application for the

right price

Understanding product demand and trends

Product lifecycle – acquisition, processing, lifetime, and

retirement

Margin management

Revenue

Customer revenue lifecycle

Forecasting

Lead metrics

Vertical trends


8/31/2016

2016 Q3 Applied Analytics Initiatives


Use Case Overview

1) Customer Pricing Segmentation

Key Questions: Who are my most price sensitive customers? What is the

maximum price change and the universe of potential customers? What is the overall size and risk profile of a pricing increase?Expected Outcomes: Scoring algorithm to

classify all customers, customer price elasticity, peer groups (cohorts) across

volume, vertical & geography

2) Monthly PerformanceAnalysis/Health of the Business

Key Questions: What drove the variance to budget this month? How do economic

and external factors impact company financial performance? Are there any

unexplained variations?Expected Outcomes: Industry definitions

and tracking, economic and category forecasts, organic calculation snapshots,

summary engagement metrics

3) Customer SatisfactionText Mining

Key Questions: How to customer comments relate to overall satisfaction? How many topic areas exist across verbatims? Can local operators & sales react to insights in a timely manner? What topics correlate to customer behavior?

Expected Outcomes: Analytically defined topic areas, time series counts of customer comments across topic areas


8/31/2016

Questions?


–

–

–

–

people you can count on® - vertica · invoicing, textile management, and accounts receivable...

Documents