Client Stories
Holcim
Holcim
System architecture redesign reduces vendor onboarding timeline from weeks to hours, provides real-time data
The Challenge
Holcim is a multinational manufacturer of building materials. With a presence in 70 countries, and 70,000+ employees, Holcim operates four businesses segments: cement, aggregates, ready-mix concrete, and products including precast concrete, asphalt, mortar, and other building materials.
The company had launched its ConcreteDirect solution, a mobile app to manage orders and track deliveries of concrete. As the solution began to scale, business leaders recognized that their primary system architecture design was limited by:
- Inherent security risks
- Insufficient query and data access functionality
- Design constraints restricting real-time updates and insights
- Full redeployment requirement of application for every new user or enhancement
The company had invested in MuleSoft but not maximized the solution to its full potential, resulting in a slow, time-consuming onboarding process when Holcim’s goal was to capture value through massive growth to scale and quick user adoption of the ConcreteDirect application.
The Solution
Holcim partnered with Argano to address these challenges. By identifying patterns in development use cases, the Argano team was able to isolate business objectives while addressing all pain points of the original system architecture. The solution-agnostic redesign included the Holcim development team’s ultimate wish-list component: an event-driven, content-based routing framework to ensure that external systems receive relevant updates in real time.
The Results
Although Holcim’s developers and business leaders had originally intended to handle the infrastructure redesign in-house, they quickly realized the value of Argano’s solution architecture proposal and asked the team to complete the entire project. The timeline included one month for analysis and four months for deployment and testing, roughly matching the time previously required for full redeployment of the original app to onboard any new vendor.
Onboarding timelines have now been significantly reduced, sometimes reaching completion in hours rather than weeks. The app flexibility allows partner-vendors to build their own solutions. Region-specific components are easily tailored to consumer needs without development bottlenecks. The system redesign unleashed MuleSoft’s integration capabilities toward expected ROI. Real-time data deliver instant visibility and traceability. Today, the ConcreteDirect solution is well positioned to capture majority market value with unlimited capacity to scale.
“Throughout the project, Argano consistently displayed a high level of professionalism and dedication. Their team was not only responsive but also proactive in addressing any challenges that arose. They worked closely with our team to understand our specific needs and provided tailored solutions that not only met our requirements but also exceeded our expectations.”
Elias Lubick, Technical Manager, Holcim
