From A Long Coffee Break to Done in Milliseconds: How Desoutter Transformed Assembly Data Processing with RavenDB

Automotive assembly lines demand split-second decisions, but imagine having to wait for hours just to filter critical manufacturing data before you could make these kinds of decisions. This was the reality some of Laurent Macquet’s customers faced on a regular basis – until their existing solution was replaced by one powered by RavenDB technology. 

Highlights

• RavenDB helped Desoutter cut manufacturing data filtering from hours to milliseconds.
• Auto-indexing reduced manual development work and improved query performance.
• RavenDB supports Desoutter customers with ACID compliance, HA clusters, ETL, backups, and time series.

Macquet is the Software Manager at Desoutter Tools, one of the world’s leading suppliers of assembly solutions. Desoutter is providing a comprehensive ecosystem of tightening tools, drilling tools, and quality inspection tools, that manage critical operations on assembly lines – from car brakes to airbags – where precision and reliability cannot be compromised.

Desoutter’s software solution, DeMeter, serves as the data collection and analytics backbone for major automotive and aerospace manufacturers. With a 10-person development team based in France, Desoutter built DeMeter – infused with RavenDB – to collect vast amounts of assembly data, while providing crucial insights that help customers improve their processes, efficiency, and quality standards.

Database Performance Became a Business Risk

Before they started using the RavenDB-enhanced DeMeter, Desoutter’s customers faced significant challenges with their SQL-based data management system. “We had some customers working with a competing product, and when they were trying to filter the data they went to get some coffee. It turns out that they managed to drink 10 coffees before they could get an answer”, Macquet recalls.

The team struggled with fundamental SQL limitations affecting development efficiency. “It was difficult to improve performance, because we were sometimes missing some indexes on some collections,” Macquet  explains. “It was a never-ending story because we could not predict all the usage of our customers.”

Another critical issue for customers was compliance. For mission-critical automotive assembly applications, legal compliance requirements demand complete traceability of all operations. Combined with scaling requirements for customers producing up to 50 million tightenings per year, their existing SQL infrastructure proved inadequate.

Finding the Right NoSQL Solution

When evaluating alternatives, Desoutter’s team assessed MongoDB, Couchbase, and CouchDB before selecting RavenDB. “We chose RavenDB also because it was really easy to use”, notes Macquet. “Coming from the SQL world, we were completely new to NoSQL”.

“Coming from the SQL world, we were completely new to NoSQL…The transition proved remarkably smooth for a team with no prior NoSQL experience”.

The transition proved remarkably smooth for a team with no prior NoSQL experience. The flexibility of NoSQL particularly appealed to the development team: “What’s really good is that we can evolve and our data models are not fixed. If you use SQL, you need to comply with migration, you need to change the table schema, and it’s very complicated. With NoSQL, If we want to add a new parameter or attribute to a collection – it’s really easy to do”, says Macquet.

RavenDB’s ACID compliance proved crucial for these mission-critical applications. “With ACID we can be sure that when we store the data into RavenDB it will not disappear – and it’s one of the only NoSQL databases able to do that”, Macquet emphasizes.

Dramatic Performance Gains and Operational Excellence

The RavenDB implementation transformed Desoutter’s operations across multiple dimensions for their customers. Query performance, for example, improved dramatically, enabling data filtering in milliseconds. Remember the extended coffee breaks as data was crunched? “Now they don’t even have time to drink coffee, so they are complaining”, Macquet exclaims, a big smile on his face.

“Query performance, for example, improved dramatically, enabling data filtering in milliseconds”.

Another major development pain point was eliminated thanks to RavenDB’s auto-indexing, says Macquet. “This really changed our life because when our customers try to access a specific data collection in a specific way, RavenDB automatically creates this index, so we don’t need to even deal with it”. This significantly improved development time and eliminated the need to test numerous combinations.

The development team’s productivity has also increased substantially, due to RavenDB’s easy integration into existing infrastructure and processes. “We have people really good in .NET and C#, and the API and SDK for RavenDB in .NET C# is really easy to use, enabling a very fast integration phase”, Macquet notes. Using RavenDB’s SQL query interface also eased the transition from the previous data storage solution.

A Foundation for Operational Excellence

As Desoutter’s customer base expanded, RavenDB’s versatility became increasingly valuable. The platform now supports deployments ranging from single-node setups for smaller customers to high-availability clusters for major manufacturers that are processing millions of operations annually, with clusters deployable in just a few days.

The operational benefits extend beyond performance, Macquet points out. Features like ETL, APIs, subscriptions on data collections, automatic indexes, backups, and archiving can be used right out-of-the-box, making operations significantly easier. Two features proved particularly valuable: time series capabilities for recording and analyzing large volumes of data with statistical calculations, and document subscriptions that notify the system whenever a document changes, enabling reactive logic implementation.

With simplified DevOps and maintenance, even complex high-availability setups are relatively easy to install and manage on customer IT infrastructure, providing immediate cost-of-ownership benefits through dramatically improved customer efficiency.

Desoutter’s relationship with RavenDB continues to evolve positively, with Macquet appreciating RavenDB’s team’s accessibility, support responsiveness and the openness to discuss new ideas and specific development needs. For a company like Desoutter and its customers, where assembly precision can be a matter of life and death, RavenDB has proven to be more than just a database – it has become the foundation for operational excellence, serving some of the world’s most demanding manufacturers.

FAQ

Why might a company migrate from a SQL database to RavenDB for data analytics?

Companies often migrate to overcome SQL performance limitations and rigid schema structures. For example, Desoutter Tools switched to RavenDB because NoSQL’s flexibility allowed them to easily add new parameters without complicated migrations, while dramatically reducing data filtering times from hours to mere milliseconds.

How does RavenDB handle indexing to optimize queries for unpredictable customer usage?

RavenDB features Auto indexes, which allow it to act as a self-optimizing database. When users query a collection in a new way, RavenDB automatically creates the necessary index, eliminating the manual development effort of predicting and managing missing indexes. For scenarios requiring manual precomputing, developers can also build Static indexes.

How can my application react automatically to real-time data changes?

You can use Subscriptions, an ongoing task feature that allows you to subscribe to defined documents. This notifies your system whenever a document changes, enabling you to implement reactive logic or trigger asynchronous worker routines on field updates.