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How AI-Assisted Development Helped Build a Connected Enterprise Platform

How AI-assisted engineering, automated testing and development automation supported the development of four connected business portals

Simplehuman Enterprise Dashboard
Executive Summary

Executive Summary

A manufacturing company needed a modern enterprise platform connecting order management, sales, planning and supplier collaboration.

The project evolved into four connected portals:

OMS

Order Management System

Sales Portal

Sales & Pricing Visibility

Planning Portal

Demand & Supply Planning

Supplier Portal

Factory & Supplier Collaboration

The development team combined conventional software engineering with AI-assisted development and automation.

Engineering Assistant
AI was used as an engineering assistant to help with:
→
Requirement analysis
→
Technical investigation
→
Code and SQL first drafts
→
Debugging
→
Test-case generation
→
Data analysis
→
Documentation
Repeatable Execution
Automation handled repeatable activities such as:
→
Builds
→
Testing
→
Deployments
→
Asynchronous messaging
→
Scheduled processing
→
Monitoring

The result was a development approach where AI helped reduce repetitive engineering work while developers remained responsible for architecture, business rules, security, validation and production decisions.

Project at a Glance

The Project at a Glance

Business Challenges

The Business Challenge

The company operated across several connected business functions:

Order processing
Sales
Demand planning
Supply planning
Factory coordination
Supplier collaboration

These activities depended on different systems, data sources and operational workflows.

The new platform needed to:

Centralize operational information.
Reduce manual order-processing activities.
Provide visibility across the order lifecycle.
Improve sales and pricing monitoring.
Help planners identify supply and demand risks.
Give suppliers and factories a dedicated collaboration platform.
Integrate with existing ERP and Microsoft SQL Server data.
Support different user roles and permissions.
Provide auditability and historical change tracking.
Process business events asynchronously.
Connected Platform Solution

The Solution We Built

The solution consists of four connected enterprise portals.

OMS – Order Management System Dashboard
OMS – Order Management System
Sales Portal & Pricing Visibility Dashboard
Sales & Pricing Visibility Portal
Planning Portal – Demand & Supply Planning Dashboard
Demand & Supply Planning Portal
Supplier Portal – Factory & Supplier Collaboration Dashboard
Supplier & Factory Collaboration Portal

Manages customer orders, order processing, order changes, allocations and operational workflows.

Provides sales visibility, pricing information, MAP monitoring and sales-event processing.

Supports demand and supply planning, supply exceptions, simulations, factory planning and purchase-order workflows.

Allows factories and suppliers to work with purchase orders, acknowledgements, change requests and shipping documents.

Although each portal serves a different business function, they share common enterprise capabilities including:

SSO
User management
Role-based access control
Audit logging
Notifications
Common business data
API communication
Event-driven processing
Azure infrastructure
AI Integration Strategy

Why We Introduced AI into Development

The objective was not to replace developers with AI.

The objective was to reduce repetitive engineering effort and allow developers to spend more time on:

Architecture
Business logic
Complex problem solving
Security
Validation
Performance
Production decisions

AI became part of the development workflow as an engineering assistant.

It helped developers move faster from:

Requirement
Analysis
First Draft
Testing
Validation
Final Implementation

Human engineers remained responsible for the final implementation and business decisions.

Development Lifecycle

Our AI-Assisted Development Process

Development Stage
AI Assistance
Human Responsibility
01 Requirement Analysis

Break requirements into smaller technical tasks and identify edge cases.

Confirm business intent and scope.

02 Technical Planning

Explore APIs, data structures and implementation approaches.

Select architecture and implementation strategy.

03 Coding

Generate first drafts of repetitive code, models, queries and service logic.

Review, modify, integrate and approve code.

04 SQL / Data

Generate and explain queries and investigate data patterns.

Validate queries against actual business data.

05 Debugging

Explain errors and suggest possible causes and fixes.

Confirm root cause and validate solution.

06 Testing

Generate positive, negative and edge-case scenarios.

Validate actual business behaviour.

07 Documentation

Prepare first drafts of technical documentation.

Verify accuracy and finalize documentation.

08 Release

Assist with release checklists and preparation.

Approve production changes.

Implementation Examples

AI in Real Project Work

Example 1 — OMS and Long-Running ERP Operations

Some OMS operations could take longer than a normal API request.

The platform therefore uses asynchronous processing through Azure Service Bus.

OMS API → Mutation Queue → Processing Service → ERP / Downstream System → Reply Queue

Correlation IDs and sessions associate requests and responses.

AI-assisted engineering helped developers:

  • Understand the asynchronous workflow.
  • Explore message-handling patterns
  • Identify timeout scenarios.
  • Consider duplicate messages.
  • Investigate failure scenarios.
  • Prepare supporting implementation.

The final architecture and production implementation remained under developer control.

OMS asynchronous processing for long-running ERP tasks

Example 2 — Large OMS Audit Dataset

The OMS Audit Dashboard can contain millions of records.

This created challenges around:

  • Query performance
  • Filtering
  • Sorting
  • Dropdown loading
  • Historical data access

The team used database optimization and caching to improve performance.

AI could assist developers by:

  • Explaining SQL queries.
  • Reviewing query approaches.
  • Suggesting optimization strategies.
  • Investigating possible database bottlenecks.
  • Generating alternative query approaches.

The final architecture and production implementation remained under developer control.

OMS audit dashboard displaying millions of records

Example 3 — Planning and Supplier Data Reconciliation

Planning and Supplier data could appear different because of:

  • Factory naming differences
  • Vendor naming differences
  • Regional records
  • Purchase-order identifiers
  • ETD windows
  • Duplicate records
  • Synchronization timing

AI-assisted analysis helped developers investigate:

  • Matching patterns
  • SQL queries
  • Data relationships
  • Possible duplicate records
  • Vendor/factory mappings
  • Reconciliation approaches

The final reconciliation logic was validated against actual business data before implementation.

Planning and supplier data matching and reconciliation
Quality Assurance & Testing

AI-Assisted Testing

AI was particularly useful for expanding the number of scenarios considered during development.

Instead of testing only the successful workflow, developers could use AI to identify:

Invalid inputs
Failure conditions
Duplicate operations
Permission problems
Data inconsistencies
Boundary conditions
Integration failures
01

OMS Order Mutation

Successful ERP response, delayed response, timeout, failure response, duplicate message.

02

Supplier Acknowledgement

Valid acknowledgement, duplicate acknowledgement, invalid PO, unauthorized supplier.

03

Change Request

Missing information, duplicate request, rejection, resubmission, invalid quantity.

04

Access Control

Correct role, missing permission, wrong portal, unauthorized factory access.

05

Data Reconciliation

Matching records, renamed vendor, duplicate PO, regional record, delayed synchronization.

Engineering & Automation Synergy

AI + Automation: Working Together

AI and automation played different but complementary roles.

Cognitive Support
AI Reduced Human Effort
→
Requirement analysis
→
Code first drafts
→
SQL assistance
→
Debugging assistance
→
Test generation
→
Data analysis
→
Documentation drafts
Execution Pipeline
Automation Reduced Manual Execution
→
Automated builds
→
Automated tests
→
Automated deployments
→
Asynchronous message processing
→
Scheduled processing
→
Notifications and monitoring
→
CI/CD workflows
AI Capabilities

AI Capabilities Used in the Development Process

The project material does not identify specific AI product names, so the case study should describe the capabilities rather than inventing vendor/tool names.

01

AI Coding Assistance

Generate starting points for repetitive code, models and service logic.

02

AI Conversational Assistance

Requirement analysis, technical investigation, debugging and documentation.

03

AI SQL Assistance

Generate, explain and review database queries.

04

AI Testing Assistance

Generate functional, negative and edge-case scenarios.

05

AI Data Analysis

Explore patterns, mismatches and reconciliation approaches.

06

AI Documentation Assistance

Create first drafts of technical and API documentation.

Development Efficiency

How AI Improved Development Efficiency

The primary benefit of AI was the reduction of repetitive engineering effort.

Developers could spend less time starting routine work from scratch and more time reviewing, validating and solving business-specific problems.

Requirement Analysis: Faster breakdown of large requirements into actionable tasks.
Coding: Reduced repetitive first-pass coding.
SQL & Data: Faster query creation and data investigation.
Testing: Faster creation of initial test scenarios.
Debugging: Faster interpretation of errors and investigation of possible causes.
Documentation: Faster creation of first drafts.
Technical Research: Faster exploration of common implementation patterns.
Verification Standard

Important Note on Cost Savings

A specific 30% development-cost reduction should not be presented as a measured Simplehuman project result unless supporting project records are available.

The correct way to establish such a claim is to compare equivalent development work before and after AI adoption, including:

Development hours
Testing preparation hours
Debugging hours
Documentation hours
Total engineering effort
Portal-Specific Deployment

AI Across the Four Portals

AI assistance was particularly valuable because the project contained multiple complex business domains.

Connected Process Flow

From Sales to Supplier: One Connected Process

The platform connects multiple parts of the business rather than treating them as isolated applications.

Sales
Sales information and pricing are monitored.
OMS
Orders are processed and operational changes are managed.
Planning
Planning teams review demand, supply, purchase orders and exceptions.
Supplier / Factory
Factories and suppliers work with purchase orders, acknowledgements, change requests and shipping documentation.
Shipping & Supply
Execution and movement of inventory.
Feedback
Updated supplier and supply information can feed back into planning and operational workflows.
Integration Architecture

AI-Assisted Integration Architecture

The overall platform can be represented as:

Simplehuman AI integration architecture diagram
Human-in-the-Loop Governance

AI Did Not Replace the Engineering Team

The project used AI as an assistant, not as the final decision-maker.

Business Requirements
Remain owned by business stakeholders and engineers.
Architecture
Architecture decisions remain with engineers.
AI-Generated Code
Reviewed, modified and tested before adoption.
Security
Authentication, authorization and access decisions remain under engineering control.
Business Logic
AI suggestions are validated against actual business requirements.
Production
Production deployment remains controlled through the engineering and release process.
Technology Foundation

Technology Foundation

Layer Technology
Frontend
React 19 Next.js 16 Material UI 8
Backend
FastAPI Python SQLAlchemy Alembic
Database
PostgreSQL
Enterprise Data
Microsoft SQL Server / ERP
Messaging
Azure Service Bus
Caching
Redis
Layer Technology
Identity
Microsoft Entra ID / Azure AD SSO
Authorization
Role-Based Access Control
Cloud
Microsoft Azure
CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Monitoring
Azure Application Insights / OpenTelemetry
Integrations
ERP SQL Server PostgreSQL Slack External data sources
The Results

From Product Vision to Connected Platform Outcome

The project established a connected enterprise platform covering:

Platform Scale

OMS
Order Management System
Sales
Pricing & Sales Visibility
Planning
Demand & Supply Planning
Supplier
Supplier Collaboration

Product Capabilities

Enterprise identity
Role-based access
Order management
Sales and pricing visibility
Demand and supply planning
Supplier collaboration
Auditability
Asynchronous processing
Data integration
Monitoring
CI/CD
Key Takeaway

AI + Automation + Human Engineering

The key lesson from the project is that AI creates the most value when it becomes part of the development process, rather than being treated as a standalone tool.

For a complex enterprise platform such as Simplehuman, AI can help engineers:

Understand requirements faster, Explore technical solutions, Create implementation starting points, Analyze SQL and data, Investigate defects, Expand test coverage, Prepare documentation

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