Case Study
Modern Data Foundation for Restaurant Franchise: From Oracle Chaos to Governed Analytics
Built enterprise-grade data infrastructure from scratch for Carl's Jr franchise—delivering complete supply chain visibility and single source of truth across 100+ locations.
Clarivant built a complete modern data stack from the ground up for Grupo AFAL (Carl's Jr Mexico), migrating Oracle EBS data to Snowflake, implementing dbt-based transformation pipelines, and delivering production-grade Tableau analytics that became the single source of truth for supply chain operations across the entire franchise network.
Key Results
The Transformation
The Challenge
Grupo AFAL (Carl's Jr Mexico franchise) had over 100 restaurant locations but zero centralized analytics. Supply chain data lived across Oracle EBS, departmental spreadsheets, and manual reports that took days to compile. The situation created real operational pain:
- Critical metrics scattered across Oracle EBS, spreadsheets, and manual reports with no centralized data warehouse — analysts were querying production databases directly, which created performance risks and inconsistent results
- Supply chain KPIs calculated inconsistently across 100+ franchise locations — one region's definition of 'food cost percentage' didn't match another's, making it impossible to compare performance or identify best practices
- No data governance framework — metrics definitions varied by department, blocking the digital transformation initiatives that AFAL's leadership knew were necessary to compete
- IT team lacked modern data stack expertise (Snowflake, dbt, cloud pipelines) to build the foundation internally, and previous attempts with legacy tools had stalled
- Executives making multi-location decisions based on data that was days or weeks old, compiled through manual processes that introduced human error at every step
Our Approach
We designed and implemented a complete modern data infrastructure for AFAL from the ground up — there was no existing data warehouse to migrate from, which meant we had to get the architecture right the first time:
Data Warehouse Foundation:
- Architected the Snowflake data warehouse from scratch — database design, schema structure, access controls, and resource monitoring. We designed the schema to accommodate AFAL's franchise structure where data needed to roll up from individual restaurant to region to enterprise
- Built Fivetran pipelines for automated Oracle EBS extraction and partnered with AFAL's IT team to configure HVA (High Volume Agent) connections for high-throughput Oracle data loads. The HVA setup required careful coordination because Oracle EBS was the operational backbone — we couldn't risk impacting restaurant operations during peak hours
Transformation & Governance Layer:
- Built a comprehensive dbt project with 134 staging models, 47 intermediate models, and 34 marts — the 3-layer architecture enforced strict data governance by separating raw data ingestion from business logic from reporting-ready outputs
- Each supply chain metric was defined once in dbt and documented — food cost, waste percentage, supplier fill rate, delivery compliance — eliminating the inconsistency problem that had plagued cross-location comparisons
- Established automated daily refresh schedules with 231 documented data quality tests that catch errors before they reach dashboards. Tests covered referential integrity, value ranges, and business rule validation
Analytics & Dashboards:
- Created a unified analytics platform delivering 360-degree supply chain visibility — from supplier delivery performance to restaurant-level inventory status
- Built 6 Tableau workbooks with governed KPI framework ensuring consistent metrics across every dimension, with role-based access controls so franchise operators see their locations while executives see the full portfolio
The Outcome
The modern data foundation transformed AFAL's supply chain operations and became the analytical backbone for the entire franchise:
Infrastructure & Governance:
- Centralized data warehouse eliminated direct Oracle queries entirely — automated daily pipelines replaced the manual extraction processes that had consumed days of analyst time each week
- 231 automated data quality tests catch errors before dashboards, with governed metric definitions ensuring consistent KPIs across all 100+ Carl's Jr franchise locations. For the first time, every department uses the same numbers
Business Impact:
- The analytics platform became AFAL's "single source of truth" for all supply chain metrics — executives have real-time visibility across the entire franchise operation from a single dashboard
- Reporting time reduced from days to minutes with live dashboards, eliminating the human error inherent in manual calculation and compilation processes
- Strong dashboard adoption among franchise operators and supply chain teams — the tools were designed around their actual workflows, not generic BI templates
Technical Excellence:
- 6 optimized Tableau workbooks supporting comprehensive analytics with sub-3-second dashboard load times on complex supply chain queries spanning 100+ locations
- Foundation architected for future AI forecasting initiatives — the governed, tested data layer is the prerequisite that makes predictive models trustworthy
- Data governance framework ready for enterprise-wide expansion beyond supply chain into finance, operations, and HR analytics
What the Client Says
Working with Clarivant transformed how we use data at AFAL. They built our entire modern data stack from the ground up—Snowflake, dbt, automated pipelines, governance frameworks. For the first time, we have a single source of truth across our 100+ Carl's Jr locations, and our executives have real-time visibility into supply chain operations. The technical rigor was exceptional—exactly what we needed for our digital transformation roadmap.
Federico Gonzalez Lutteroth
Director of Digital Transformation, Grupo AFAL (Carl's Jr)
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