A decrease in invoice processing time for the rocket manufacturer
The US-based space rocket manufacturer currently manages thousands of invoices each month, which vary from 5 to over 10,000 line items. Their existing process involves teams of supply chain specialists reviewing a variety of documents to ensure a high level of accuracy. Additionally, compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) necessitates that certain ERP systems be isolated and maintained within secure networks, resulting in significant data sync challenges across multiple systems. With several ERP systems in place, integration with various applications was essential. Appliscale explored multiple off-the-shelf solutions, but most were unsuitable due to ITAR constraints. Consequently, Appliscale and the client decided to create a custom solution using the AWS GOV cloud, leveraging machine learning and character recognition capabilities. This application will integrate with existing ERP systems to fully automate the invoice processing workflow. A serverless application was designed to be highly scalable and capable of quick deployments via feature updates. With AWS serverless technology, all infrastructure is codified, and an automated build and deployment process was established. The serverless architecture allows the client to avoid server maintenance costs, paying only for code execution. Tools such as AWS Lambda, CloudFormation, EC2, and SageMaker were employed. The next project phase is being prepared, which will enhance the machine learning system to better identify common errors and facilitate human training of the system. Appliscale oversaw all technical requirements gathering, architectural design, development, and project management.