How Automation Simplifies Solution Architecture: A Case Study on Tiered Meeting Dashboards with Tulip

A good solution architecture requires solutions that are not only functional but intuitive and easy to maintain. Achieving this in a scalable way requires a solid solution architecture that can handle complex data without overwhelming users. This is where automation proves invaluable.

Using Tulip, we implemented an automated solution architecture within the Tiered meeting dashboards for a more agile, user-friendly approach to data handling. This article will explore how automation helped simplify our architecture, reduced complexity, and ultimately transformed the efficiency of our operations.

The Challenge in Tier Board Dashboard App Solution

Tiered meetings are a structured, hierarchical approach to daily operational communication. Typically, they consist of different “tiers” (or levels) of meetings, each focusing on a specific layer of the organization, such as Line (Tier 1), Value Stream (Tier 2), or Plant (Tier 3).

When we first examined our meeting dashboards, it became clear that integrating diverse data sources was both essential and challenging. Each Tiered meeting dashboard (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3) required pulling data from various data sources, like the Quality app suite for safety metrics, Scrap App Suite for quality metrics, and external data source like ERP for production data. Manually managing this data integration in each app added complexity to the architecture, increasing time and resource demands and making it difficult to be maintained in the long run.

Beyond data integration, we also faced challenges in ensuring that the dashboards were easy to manage and navigate. The Tier 1 Meeting App alone required significant logic to handle shift-based workflows, making it difficult to modify or scale. We needed a solution that would keep the architecture manageable while allowing the dashboard to evolve with user needs.

Automation in Tulip and Simplified Solution Architecture

To address these challenges, we turned to Tulip’s automation capabilities. With Tulip, we automated key aspects of data handling, process flow, and real-time reporting within our dashboards. Here’s how automation made a measurable difference:

  1. Centralize KPI Calculation and Logic: By calculating KPIs in a shared data pipeline, we maintain consistency across all tiers and reduce redundancy. This approach means that any change to the KPI calculation process happens in one place, ensuring that all dashboards are updated simultaneously without the need to modify individual apps.

  2. Simplify App Design and Responsiveness: Offloading KPI calculations to an external pipeline keeps each app’s internal logic simple and responsive. The apps can pull pre-calculated metrics directly from the pipeline, streamlining the data flow and reducing the load on the app itself. This design keeps the dashboards responsive, enabling real-time performance insights for end-users.

  3. Aggregate Data Automatically Based on Tier Requirements: Tulip’s automation helps by aggregating data at the appropriate level for each tier. For example, it provides shift-based insights for Tier 1 while consolidating value stream and plant views for Tiers 2 and 3.

Exemplary Automation Flow:

Results: A Simplified, Stable, and Scalable Architecture

The impact of automation on the Tiered meeting dashboards was significant, resulting in a more stable and sustainable app architecture. Key outcomes included:

  1. Enhanced App Stability
    With automated data integration and KPI updates, the apps are now more stable and dependable. Automation reduces duplicating similar functions across multiple apps, ensuring reliable data flow and consistent app performance.

  2. Reduced Complexity
    Automating complex workflows and logic reduced the overall complexity, making the apps much easier to maintain. This simplicity allows the team to focus on continuous improvement without the burden of manual data management.

  3. Empowering the Team
    Automation has enabled us to train the citizen developer on managing the apps with confidence. They can now make adjustments and respond to user needs more independently, freeing up our resources for other high-priority tasks.

Feedback from end users has been overwhelmingly positive, with many highlighting how intuitive and efficient the dashboards have become. By simplifying solution architecture through automation, we’ve not only optimized our processes but also empowered the team to maintain these improvements long-term.

Conclusion: The Power of Automation in Solution Architecture

Automation in the Tiered meeting application streamlined data handling, simplified architecture, and enabled real-time KPI updates across all tiers. By centralizing KPI calculations and data aggregation in a shared pipeline, the architecture not only became easier to maintain but also supported scalable, event-driven data consumption. This setup ensures that the same data events, like safety or quality updates, can be seamlessly consumed across multiple dashboards, delivering consistent, up-to-date metrics at every tier and reducing the need for redundant processes. Automation thus enables a more efficient, responsive system, empowering users with immediate access to critical information and supporting better decision-making throughout the organization.

As manufacturing environments continue to evolve, adopting automation within solution architecture will be critical in reducing complexity and boosting productivity. We encourage others in the community to explore how automation can unlock new efficiencies in their own systems and create more sustainable solutions.


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