The Unified Customer Project aimed to resolve one of Oldcastle’s most persistent post-acquisition challenges: fragmented and inconsistent customer records across its network of independently operated plants. Each location maintained its own databases, often leading to duplicated or incomplete customer entries, which in turn hampered cross-plant visibility and created internal competition for the same clients.

To address this, we implemented an automated integration with Experian’s API to standardize and unify customer data. This solution allowed us to match disparate records to a singular customer identity using Experian’s proprietary identifiers. Not only did this improve data accuracy and reporting, but it also laid the groundwork for centralized customer visibility across the entire enterprise.

What began as a targeted cleanup effort evolved into a scalable, cloud-hosted platform that could be leveraged by multiple business units. The initiative played a key role in reducing sales conflicts between plants and empowered teams with better access to historical quotes and customer context, enhancing both operational efficiency and customer experience.

Lead Developer & Integration Architect

I led the development of a system that aggregated customer data from all plant-level databases, restructured it to meet Experian’s API specifications, and handled bidirectional communication between systems. This required architecting a service to handle batch processing, data sanitization, and error resolution before securely sending records to Experian.

Upon receiving standardized customer IDs from Experian, I built a system to remap and update plant databases accordingly. I also developed logic to ensure future runs only processed new or unmatched customers, streamlining maintenance and reducing API calls.

In parallel, I collaborated extensively with our DBA, the Experian API team, and various plant stakeholders to ensure data formatting consistency and smooth system adoption. The project culminated in the creation of a centralized dashboard that allowed teams to identify customers already quoted by other plants, minimizing redundant sales efforts.

The solution’s modular API structure enabled CR Laurence and other OBE subsidiaries to adopt it without any additional development, extending its impact beyond the original use case.

• Enterprise Data Deduplication
Designed a system to consolidate and unify customer data from multiple independent databases using third-party identity resolution services.

• Cloud-Based Integration & API Architecture
Built a scalable service to communicate with Experian's API, manage bidirectional data flow, and expose endpoints for other business units.

• Cross-Org Stakeholder Alignment
Collaborated with external vendors, internal DBAs, and plant-level teams to ensure seamless data preparation, secure transmission, and stakeholder buy-in.

• Legacy System Compatibility
Developed a solution that interfaced with older plant systems without requiring major infrastructure changes, maintaining business continuity.

• Operational Enablement
Created a dashboard to provide real-time visibility into customer activity across plants, reducing internal competition and improving quote management.

• PHP 5 - 8.3
• TinyButStrong
• Curl
• Ajax
• XML
• Json
• MySQL
• Apache
• LDAP
• Internal API
• Experian API's