REWE Group
Emakina digitises data processing at REWE
REWE’s Group IT needed a technology partner to help turn a manual process of evaluating vast amounts of shopper data into something much more manageable. Together, we build HIPPIE 2.0: smart, custom-build software that enables fast and robust evaluations for efficient and customer-oriented action planning. The first prototype was ready in eight weeks and all key features designed and developed in eight short months.
The challenge
In order to provide REWE customers with the best possible service every day, a powerful, well thought-out software is needed that evaluates shopping events, discount campaigns and campaign-specific customer behaviour. The experienced developers team of EMAKINA CEE supported REWE Group IT in the front-end development and provided the profound know-how of its experienced digital experts for consulting on agile project management, implementation and integration.
The solution
Transaction data is collected and evaluated on a daily basis for action planning. Until now, this has been done in the individual retail companies on an individual basis and mainly manually. Emakina recommended software that could enable quick and easy queries, dynamic evaluation and graphic display. The data can be prepared and graphically illustrated in a user-friendly interface under different aspects and with different KPIs.
Agile development process
The starting signal was given at a Scrum Master Workshop in October 2018, where framework conditions as well as acceptance criteria for the early development phase were defined. Only a few weeks later, the team presented the first views and invited to a test round. The meaningful findings flowed directly into the following development phase. The result was HIPPIE, a precisely tailored tool that was fully functional at the go-live in May 2019.
The distinctive functionality of HIPPIE software is explained by its development process. Both sides showed confidence in the competence and expertise of the project partner, which is why the entire project was developed in close cooperation according to agile methodology.
Technical background
The JavaScript library D3 with the abstraction level VEGA serves as basic tool. The processing of documents based on data offers all advantages for user-friendly use. At the same time, the logic does justice to the Java interfaces, which makes diverse and, above all, dynamic enquiries possible on the basis of the centralised Oracle database.
The technical solution of the front-end application was carried out within the Angular Framework. Thus the system offers optimised loading times and supports JavaScript for the integration of asynchronous algorithms. Exclusively independent components of the different views ensure the best possible performance within the data evaluation. This reduces the load on the background system many times over and opens the way for the integration of automated test cases.
The front-end interface runs within all common browsers and automatically adapts to different resolutions and sizes. The VEGA library was chosen for a user-defined display of graphs and diagrammes. The big advantage here is the serializable diagramme definition as JSON structure, which makes individual enquiries to the diagrammes possible. At the same time, the code in the front-end remains manageable – this saves computing power that flows into the full productivity of the evaluation processes.
Intuitive analysis tool for REWE's action planning
#DONE
Within REWE Group, HIPPIE was used to successfully harmonise the action language, which from now on will provide fast and robust evaluations for efficient and customer-oriented action planning.