Brickworks cuts integration delivery time from 80 days to 12

Brickworks has overhauled its data integration architecture with Boomi and Atturra, cutting project delivery times from more than 80 days to 12.

The Australian building products manufacturer also gained access to enterprise data that had previously been trapped in disconnected systems and documents.

Brickworks, which owns brands including Austral Bricks, Bristile Roofing and Bowral Bricks, had relied on single-use point-to-point connections across its systems. That made it harder to share data across the business and increased the time and cost of building new integrations.

The company employs about 1,800 people globally and operates manufacturing plants, design centres and retail outlets across Australia, New Zealand and North America. Its customers include builders, architects, developers, contractors, resellers and homeowners.

Integration shift

To address those constraints, Brickworks worked with software group Boomi and implementation partner Atturra to create a more reusable integration architecture. The project included linking its product information management system with its content management system.

According to the companies, the new approach allowed Brickworks to set up 18 interfaces in 12 days, instead of following a more traditional build that could have taken more than 80 business days. The work also produced documentation intended to make later changes easier to manage.

The overhaul supported a marketing integration tied to the migration of product data to a new website. Brickworks said the full set of integrations for that launch was delivered without disruption, despite a tight timetable and late changes.

Platform usage rose 700 per cent, while costs increased 50 per cent, according to Brickworks. It said the gains reflected a shift to standard architectural patterns that reduced complexity and improved support.

Procurement data

The project also exposed procurement information that had not previously been available for analysis. Brickworks said it unlocked more than 40,000 spend records and captured line-level detail by extracting information from mailboxes and routing 135,000 PDF files through Azure Document Understanding.

That has given teams a clearer view of spending patterns and supplier activity. Brickworks said the data is now being used for category management analysis and vendor negotiations.

Keiren Lawrence, Chief Information Officer at Brickworks, described the change as part of a broader rethink of how the business uses data.

"We wanted to essentially move our data onto highways, while also creating reuse and unlocking data that we couldn't previously access. This moved integration from a one-off background capability to a core strategic enabler for the team to really drive business outcomes from core technology," Lawrence said.

Atturra said the work formed part of a longer-term transformation programme with the manufacturer. It had already been involved in rolling out Boomi across Brickworks' systems before implementing its own Atturra Integration Accelerator alongside Boomi Companion for the latest stage.

Peter Savage, Field Chief Technology Officer for Data and Integration at Atturra, said the project met the targets set at the outset.

"We've been working with Brickworks on business transformation and unlocking strategic business benefits by transforming and uplifting the application architecture and the integration," Savage said.

"In addition to receiving the benefits of not having to move data by hand, Brickworks also unlocked future capabilities that will help it achieve its wider business goals," he said.

"When we rolled out the Atturra Integration Accelerator with the Boomi Companion, we basically achieved every one of the goals that we set for ourselves, and it's been a tremendously successful partnership," Savage said.

Lawrence said the integration platform had become an important part of Brickworks' technology strategy as usage expanded across the business.

"Boomi is a really important part of our strategy, and gives us a controlled, scalable way to connect our systems and activate our data. Since modernising our integration architecture with Boomi, our platform usage has increased by 700 per cent, enabling teams to act faster and provide the correct data when and where it's needed, unlocking insights that just weren't possible before," Lawrence said.

Boomi said the Brickworks project showed how manufacturers can use integration work to expose operational data that had previously been hard to reach.

"Brickworks has demonstrated that when integration becomes a strategic capability, organisations can unlock the full value of their data," said David Irecki, Chief Technology Officer, APJ at Boomi.

"Together with Atturra, we are proud to have helped Brickworks build a scalable, reusable integration foundation that enables faster delivery today while creating the trusted data needed to scale with confidence," he said.