ED Inventory

ED Inventory brief

Existing customers Electronics Datasheets approached Strategies about a new project that they were planning. The aim was to create a new parts comparison website that would provide up to date pricing and availability from over 20 leading distributors. Engineers and buyers would be able to use the websites search function to source millions of parts from thousands of manufacturers and then purchase directly from authorized suppliers. A name was established for the project (ED Inventory, or EDI for short) and planning got underway.

The Strategies web development team were confronted with a number of issues not least how to build a website that would contain tens of millions of electronic components and parts yet still provide a rapid and powerful search engine function. It was eventually decided that a combination of both Mongo DB and Elastic Search were the best technologies to utilise and the team went ahead planning the software development and hosting required to maintain and power such a large and complex website.

Whilst the technology planning progressed our web design team produced a unique design for the new website. The established EDS brand was extended with new colours for EDI and a fresh and intuitive design was produced to underpin the technological work that was already underway.

What we did for ED Inventory

The next challenge to overcome was establish a reliable method of getting data into the website with a minimum of human intervention. A combination of methods were used in order to be able to accommodate the needs of the data suppliers – some of the world’s largest distributors of electronic components and parts. Some distributors possess APIs that we could directly integrate with whilst others preferred to still supply data in flat CSV or spreadsheet files. Systems were developed to accommodate all methods and to allow for the regular and rapid processing of part inventory and pricing data.

The result is a website that is simple to use possessing a powerful search function that allows users to interrogate tens of millions of database records in seconds. Specifiers can rapidly find the parts that they need before comparing pricing in real-time from the world’s largest parts distributors.

A new and powerful BOM (build of materials) website application is currently being developed and prepared for launch in the spring of 2018. This new tool will quickly evaluates millions of parts to improve order accuracy, save time and increase user confidence in specifying and purchasing semiconductors and electronic components. It will be free to use and available to anyone visiting EDI.

This website will join a suite of websites that Strategies have developed for this client, including Student Circuit.