ENABLING INNOVATION THROUGH MODERNIZATION –
ONE FAUCET AT A TIME

Delta Faucet is a long-time manufacturing company of hardware and are producers of the first single handle faucet. They are the first to advertise a faucet in print, as well as bring to market the first domestically produced kitchen faucet pull-out. Delta’s Innovation group – First Wave – is where they launch new products and innovations into the market to meet customer demands and keep pace in the digital landscape. Since the introduction of this faucet, Delta Faucet has continued to bring new innovative products to market with the consumer in mind. Delta Faucet’s innovative products aim to transform daily life and how you interact with water, making every moment spent in the kitchen or bathroom one to remember.

In 2018, Delta Faucet launched its voice-activated faucet. The success of the voice-activated faucet and the accelerating trend toward digital products led Delta to re-envision the platform to scale & grow its digital products and services. Delta’s industry is shifting from mechanical only to digitally enhanced (smart faucet) to fully digital (Smart Home) to keep pace Delta needed to incorporate digital into their product mix. CleanSlate entered the picture to build out the foundation for Delta Faucet to ensure they could continue launching digital-enabled products. Over the course of our partnership with Delta Faucet, we worked toward implementing product delivery capabilities leveraging modern Agile delivery processes and “best fit” tooling.

"We’ve been lucky to have Cleanslate as a partner who was able to architect and build our DevOps processes so we can easily push out Delta's products and upgrades that our customers expect."
– Joe Baumgarte,

challenges

There were many challenges for CleanSlate and Delta Faucet. But, the following four were enablers to innovating their product for the future.

Need for New Comprehensive Software Development Process and Infrastructure

Moving from traditional manufacturing to a hybrid model of building faucets and enabling them with software meant that it was time for Delta to innovate.

Working With a Broad Set of Technologies

The launch of the voice faucet introduced an entirely new set of technologies, voice skills, mobile applications, APIs, and more. Building these skills would take time in this tight labor market, so Delta chose a partner with the skills to create the digital experience quickly.

Time for Refresh – The Ever Changing Landscape

In only two short years of launching the voice faucet, the landscape of cloud technologies has shifted significantly.

The Need for Quality

Delta Faucet is known for its quality products. Introducing new digital features meant increased complexity for launching new products. Software quality would need to match product quality. Additionally, automated testing would need to be implemented to streamline and save time in the product launch process.

Solutions

Build Out DevOps Infrastructure

CleanSlate built out cloud-based solutions to implement DevOps practices throughout planning, development, delivery, and operations to allow for better collaboration and ship products faster. Among the various cloud-based tools, the automated process included:

  • Rewriting and Updating Existing Code to Leverage Automation
  • Automated Code Reviews for Quality
  • Security Standards Checks
  • Adding New Features to Create the Connected Water Platform

All of the above revolve around customer experience, reliable & secure products, excellent customer experience, efficient operations to make the product affordable to build, and support to allow Delta to remain competitive.

Implementing Standard Cloud Environments

CleanSlate built out, designed, and implemented cloud environments so that when new features were deployed, we could put them in the right place, at the right time – every single time through automation and with very minimal human intervention in the process. Standard processes and tools mean better quality and more efficiency; therefore lower cost to build and support and finally speed to market.

Results

CleanSlate implemented testing automation that increased code coverage from 10% to 90% to ensure everything was solid before it ever went into production. The ability to spin up a new project and a pristine environment to support the development of new projects went from months (even quarters) down to just a matter of hours. This was a huge win for Delta Faucet.

We owned the solution from end to end – the processes, the procedures, the people, their roles, and working out how they would adopt agile, build the infrastructure, and operate the infrastructure when building out new products as an entire enterprise solution. Leveraging the cloud infrastructure gave Delta the ability to scale up as quickly as needed to meet future customer demands. This solution enables Delta Faucet to roll out new projects with ease; shortening the time to market and improving their quality exponentially.

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