With a history spanning over 31 years and more than 2,700 locations worldwide, the client is a leading fast-casual restaurant chain renowned for its fresh, customizable Mexican-inspired cuisine. The company is deeply committed to sustainability, sourcing responsibly raised meats and organic produce whenever possible, and has demonstrated impressive growth, driven by a strong focus on digital sales and innovative ordering options.
As the company continued its rapid expansion, the organization partnered with Brillio to identify opportunities to enhance its operational efficiency. Together, we recognized the value of improving the organization’s supply chain management, which relied on multiple Excel-based reports—resulting in time-consuming processes and occasional errors. Seizing this opportunity, the client sought to streamline processes and improve accuracy through a unified data management and reporting strategy, providing enhanced visibility into key business metrics.
Together with the company’s Supply Chain team, the potential to consolidate PSI (Procurement, Supply & Inventory) data into a unified view was also identified, which would enable detailed tracking of stock levels to optimize inventory management. This strategic move would ensure greater control and agility in their supply chain operations, particularly during periods of rapid growth.
With extensive domain knowledge, deep experience in the QSR space, and expertise in implementing data management systems, ETL processes, quality assurance, and visualization, Brillio emerged as the ideal partner to assist the client throughout this transformation and turn these opportunities into tangible results.
Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency Through Data Automation and Cloud Integration
Following a thorough analysis of the client’s supply chain operations and infrastructure, Brillio started the endeavor by automating inventory health monitoring at Distribution Centers (DCs). This was achieved by replicating data from SQL Server to Snowflake and building a PSI (Procurement, Supply, Inventory) cube to track key metrics such as Distribution Center Stock on Hand and Days of Supply.
Utilizing MS Power BI, Brillio developed a flexible PSI Dashboard, empowering the Supply Chain team to customize it independently for real-time insights and decision-making, reducing dependency on technical support for updates.
Deployment Phases Overview:
Migration Assessment:
Workshops and system studies were conducted to assess the current technology state (As-Is). Through design thinking sessions with stakeholders, the requirements for the future state (To-Be) were finalized. Additionally, a data maturity assessment was completed, determining the approach to address the identified gaps.
Cloud Data Platform Design and Development:
Furthermore, the architecture for a cloud-based data platform was designed utilizing Snowflake and ADLS. The Snowflake platform was set up according to the specifications outlined in the solution architecture. Curated and semantic layers were developed with logical data and consumption models to ensure efficient data management.
Data Migration:
Source-to-target mappings from raw to curated and curated to semantic layers were then validated for sales, payments, customer, and order data. ETL pipelines were implemented using Azure Data Factory, Fivetran, and DBT. Migration and ETL scripts were created, incorporating data quality and governance controls to ensure data integrity.
Serve Downstream Applications:
MS Power BI reports were configured to retrieve data from the semantic layer dynamically. This structured approach ensured the systematic implementation and integration of a robust cloud data platform, facilitating enhanced data management, analysis, and reporting capabilities across the client’s operations.
The Automation of PSI: Uncovered Insights, Substantial Cost Savings, and Reduced Total Cost of Ownership
By capitalizing on the opportunities identified collaboratively by the teams, automation significantly reduced the need for manual data entry and processing, leading to significant labor cost savings and greater visibility and analytics. Additionally, minimizing human errors in data entry and calculations resulted in more accurate procurement, supply, and inventory records.
Following the recognized value of adding PSI reports, the client ensured that popular items were always in stock, improving customer satisfaction and enabling faster service. Additionally, the automation of PSI provided valuable insights into supplier performance, allowing for the prompt identification and resolution of issues.
By migrating to a cloud-based infrastructure, the client achieved substantial cost savings and reduced its Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The cloud solution also offered easy scalability to support business growth, managing increased volumes without a proportional rise in labor costs. This enabled centralized procurement and inventory management across multiple locations, further enhancing operational efficiency.
PSI reports also played a vital role in reducing food waste by optimizing inventory levels and ensuring that products were used before their expiration dates. The Supply Chain (SC) team was empowered with self-service capabilities, allowing them easy access and the autonomy to customize and modify the Cube and Dashboard as business needs evolved. This self-service capability enhanced the agility and responsiveness of supply chain operations.
