Client
The CIS Association of Electrical Companies (RAEC) is an association of 14 major electrical equipment distributors, including Elevel, Elkom-Electro, Electron, ABC-Electro, and others.
RAEC members work with 30 suppliers, including Schneider Electric, Gauss, Philips, ERA, and others. In total, they sell 2 million product names that are constantly updated and expanded. Sales volume in 2021 reached RUB 91 billion.
Problem: no manager can memorize 2 million components in order to advise RAEC clients
Suppose a client wants to buy a batch of Philips 60W bulbs with an E27 base. The distributor may not have them for many reasons:
In such cases, the distributor can offer the client an equivalent from its own assortment or from the assortment of its RAEC partners. But to do that, the manager speaking with the client has to recall all suitable equivalents, check stock availability, and present them to the client.
It is difficult to find an equivalent even for a simple request like the light bulbs from the example above:
At launch time, after three months of work, 93,378 items had been migrated to RAEC's Pimcore instance, with "Lighting Equipment" chosen as the test category. In the first year, the entire assortment of 2 million items was migrated to RAEC's Pimcore instance.
Client requests can cover multiple parameters at once. For example, a residual current device may be required, with rated current and voltage fixed, price set within a range, and tripping current allowed to vary. At the same time, 50 units must be delivered within a week.
In that case, the manager would need to know every model of every device inside out and memorize all 2 million components, along with their prices and availability in the company's and its partners' warehouses.
No one can remember that much. For business, that is a problem.
To solve these issues, RAEC turned to kt.team.
- An order for 1,000 bulbs, but only 500 in stock;
- Delivery will be in a month, but it is needed now;
- The distributor stopped selling Philips products;
- The manufacturer shifted the bulb's color temperature into the "warm" range, but the client needs "cool";
- The model is outdated and no longer in production;
- The price increased, and the budget is not enough;
- The company is switching to products from CIS manufacturers, so a replacement is needed.
- open the "Bulbs" category;
- from 9 subcategories, we select "LED bulbs";
- from 15 second-level subcategories, we select "Standard LED bulb (A55, A60)";
- from 30 options, we select the required equivalent.
- Communication with the client drags on: finding equivalents can take several days. By then, some clients have already found another offer.
- The workload on experienced managers is increasing because only they can handle complex requests. This makes it harder to scale the business.
- Warehouse inventory turnover drops. The most popular products sell out quickly, while others, on the contrary, sit unsold for too long.
- Synchronization between RAEC members is lost. For example, a manager knows that a component was not in stock 3 days ago. Most likely, they will not offer it to the client if a shipment was received on the day of the consultation.
- The client loses trust if no equivalent can be found: "they do not even know what they are selling."
Task: build an instant equivalence search system for electronic components
The manager must receive a list of equivalents for the electrical component the client is looking for within seconds. The employee's experience level and the complexity of the request must not prevent the client from getting fast, high-quality support.
The analog search system must take into account the component's technical characteristics, price, brand and manufacturer, stock availability, delivery speed, and the contracts concluded between RAEC members.
At the same time, the system must find both full and partial equivalents of a component. Two bulbs with the same base and wattage are full equivalents, while the same base alone makes them partial equivalents.
When new components appear, equivalents must be calculated automatically, without the involvement of IT specialists or company managers. Likewise, information on component availability in RAEC members' warehouses must also update automatically after new deliveries.
Review a similar project with an architect
In 3 months, KT.Team developed a unified database of electrical components and an equivalence search system
RAEC members could record the same component differently in their systems, with different attributes and names. We standardized 2 million electrical component names from the RAEC database. The new structure was implemented in Pimcore and connected via API to the RAEC database and the systems of association members.
In addition, together with RAEC specialists, we developed equivalence selection rules for each component subcategory and built the search system around them. The manager creates a request, and products are loaded via API from distributor systems into Pimcore. The system then automatically assigns components to categories and finds equivalents for them.
Result 1: the system finds analogs in 5 seconds
Before: when a client made a request, the manager opened the database and searched for equivalents manually, relying on their own knowledge of electrical components and the required attributes.
For large orders, up to four managers searched for equivalents. For the most complex requests, they had to involve electrical engineers. In the end, the search could take several days.
Now: the system finds analogs in 5 seconds. Managers can now advise customers in real time by phone, in messengers, or in person.
To make this possible, KT.Team, together with RAEC experts, formalized analog selection rules for one category, Lighting. Collecting and digitizing the rules took 8 iterations, and the system now includes detailed reference guides based on the experience of dozens of professional managers and engineers.
We made this process universal: RAEC members can now add analog selection rules for the remaining 13 component categories on their own. There is no longer any need to involve an IT company, which will reduce development costs several times over.
Result 2: managers monitor component turnover in warehouses and factor in their profitability
The manager can offer the client an equivalent component that has been sitting in stock for a long time, for example, from a less popular brand. The manager can also prioritize components with higher margins.
This is easiest in tender procurement. The requirements usually specify not particular brands and models, but individual technical characteristics of the components. With the new system, the manager can select any offer within the stated budget.
Result 3: the components and analogs database updates automatically without IT department support
The number of electrical components sold by RAEC members grows every year. For example, in July 2022, 3,500 items from a new supplier, Hyperline, were added to the database.
Without automatic updates, the equivalence search system would become outdated in a couple of months, or every RAEC member would need to update the database manually.
KT.Team developed a system that updates automatically whenever any component data changes: adding new and removing old names, changing specifications, prices, and stock levels of components in the warehouse.
RAEC managers update data wherever it is convenient for them, and the system synchronizes the changed records in Pimcore. The database is updated every 8 hours. For components that have changed, an equivalence search is triggered. This way, the system always reflects up-to-date information about RAEC components.
