By Allen Li
1) Executive Summary
The Split File Solution automatically sorts data files, generates files counts/data sum as the data comes in, and sends data files only to their corresponding owners. It is expected to significantly reduce time, cost, labor and room for errors during data transmission process and is superior than the old labor-based manual solution in every way.
2) Business Situation and Challenges
When a vender sends a summary of data files to a company and its subsidiary companies, oftentimes, the data files are sent to the latter as a group altogether. Although “company codes” are assigned to each file to help identify who owns that particular piece of data, the sub-companies have visibility of all data files, including the ones that don’t belong to them.
When it is desired that data files are only visible to the parties owning them, this way of data transmission no longer works.
3) Past Solution
To make sure each data file only goes to its owner, on a daily basis, a dedicated taskforce manually sorts through the files, hand-picks, and groups the data files with the same company code, and sends the data files to each individual sub-company.
This is not only time consuming and allowing room for human errors, but cost-prohibitive and unsustainable in the long-term. For some larger organizations with huge data loads, this would be humanly impossible.
4) New Solution
Instead of relying on labor, the Split File Solution achieves automation, where a meticulously coded filtering system is created to:
- Sort the data files by their “company code” as they come in,
- Generate file counts and data sum for record,
- And ensure the data files are sent to their individual owner and nobody else.
5) The Benefits
This solution has been applied in real business cases and saved tremendous time and labor. Comparing to manual labor-based solution, it also allows room for further enhancement and expansion. With the process being automated, the solution is fully equipped to accommodate large amount of data.