Modernizing E-Commerce Fulfillment Through API-Led Architecture

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The client is a transportation company operating largely in e-commerce fulfillment. 

The Challenge

This transportation client wanted to utilize IoT in order to improve their processes in multiple ways:

• First, the client wanted to track data from multiple transponder types on trucks and trailers owned by their partners. However, since the client did not own the corresponding hardware or software on their partner’s trucks, this made real-time fleet tracking and management difficult. 
• Second, the client also faced not just legacy technologies but inefficient manual and paper-based processes to accompany them. The client needed to become more agile to incorporate emerging web and mobile applications into their tech stack. 
• Finally, to make things more complicated, the clients’ competitors were mobile-friendly, technology-forward companies that were beating them in these very domains. 

Ultimately, the client wanted to find a way to get the comprehensive real-time fleet tracking they were lacking in their processes, move past paper document reporting, and keep up with evolving digital requirements. 

AVIO’s Solution

AVIO worked with the client to implement the following agnostic omnichannel solution with scalable, traceable, and accurate API-led architecture. The client didn’t just need a solution for today, but for three to five years from now when they were working with larger volumes of data. 

This API-led architecture works on the foundation of integrating with the client’s core systems. Once that foundation is in place, the systems can be orchestrated and the processes optimized so the first pilot project can take place. 

AVIO’s API solution was able to provide data from the first transponder. The client was able to receive that data and process it through the process layer APIs. From there, they connected it to their core systems with their system layer APIs. 

As a next step, AVIO was able to help the client add a new transponder type, enabling them to reuse their underlying API assets. This reuse reduced the time it took to deliver value on subsequent projects. 

The Results 

While the primary needs for this project were internal, the client is now opening up future monetization to expand beyond their original core capabilities. Because of this API architecture, the client was empowered to partner with other shipping giants like UPS during busy seasons like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The results of the partnership helped the client achieve their goals for data tracking and an integrated, holistic system. The client was able to track data from 75,000 trailers per day, giving them more than 500,000 trailer statistics on a daily basis.

A group of APIs made this success possible:

• Experience APIs connected to multiple different transponder types. Each new transponder type was able to reuse all the underlying infrastructure, allowing quicker connectivity. 
• Process APIs consolidated and orchestrated the data into a canonical data model. 
• System APIs received data and provided it to downstream systems for internal purposes. 
• Experience APIs delivered the right data at the right time to customer-facing applications. 

The client now has the systems needed to improve reporting, decrease shipment errors, and increase delivery efficiency.