This case study highlights how the Pragma and On Key Integrate teams developed an integration solution for Prowalco after changes to the Legal Metrology Act impacted their operations directly. As a leading fuel pump and dispenser manufacturer in South and sub-Saharan Africa, Prowalco has strict service level agreements (SLA). Our software interface enabled them to continue operations with zero stops while maintaining the same level of service to clients.
Key challenges
The Legal Metrology (LM) Act ensures that consumers receive the quantity of goods declared by an importer, manufacturer or retailer on a pre-packaged item. It also ensures that instrument measurements remain accurate, within prescribed limits of error, where measuring instruments are used to conclude a transaction. In September 2019, the South African government changed the LM Act, directly affecting Prowalco’s work management operations. Some of the key challenges addressed were:
- Calibration needed for specific master items being replaced/repaired.
- Strict service level agreements(SLAs) being in place for work completion.
- One of the first interfaces built solely with the new On Key Integrate technology.
Our intervention
- Pragma was approached to design and develop a software interface to help Prowalco adhere to the modified legislation. The On Key Integrate and Pragma operational teams developed the solution.
- The team designed an interface to handle the creation of follow-up work orders in On Key, to re-calibrate the relevant assets.
- The affected assets were flagged in On Key for the interface to identify them.
- The Rabbit Messaging Queue service was used to establish when a work order changes to a predefined status and automatically creates a follow-up work order with all the fields populated as requested and a dynamic Work Required field.
- The result is that a contractor can be notified and dispatched to the relevant asset and complete the equipment calibration within an acceptable time adhering to Prowalco SLAs.
Value add
- Continuous process monitoring ensuring pro-active Pragma intervention when necessary
- 95% of work orders were created within 25 seconds of the trigger
- Improvement in work order generation time – quicker action time, in turn, helps to achieve SLAs
- No interface errors or problems have been experienced in the Production environment to date
- Fluctuating and high amount of record changes in On Key are accepted and processed seamlessly.
Client background
- Prowalco is a leading local manufacturer and supplier of fuel pumps and dispensers to various petroleum companies in South and sub-Saharan Africa. The company offers petroleum companies comprehensive repair and maintenance services and currently has Africa’s largest pump service infrastructure.
- Prowalco has been an important client of Pragma for a number of years, with several existing interfaces. It was important to create confidence that a new interface request could be developed and delivered on time without any issues.