Mercadona: Modernizing Enterprise Architecture & Accelerating Software Delivery
Mercadona is one of Spain’s largest supermarket chains, operating more than 1,600 stores across all regions of Spain and Portugal. As part of a strategic transformation, its IT department began an ambitious modernization of internal applications and enterprise-level architecture.
The initiative aimed to shift away from legacy systems, adopt modern architectural criteria and introduce scalable, event-driven and microservices-based patterns. To accelerate this transformation, Mercadona partnered with Plain Concepts to help define new standards and support the internal Enterprise Software Architecture team.
Mercadona needed to create clear and actionable architectural criteria that could guide solution architects across the organization. The challenge was not only to define these principles but also to ensure deep understanding of modern concepts such as microservices sizing, event-driven architecture, and real-time vs batch processing.
At the same time, software development processes required improved agility, better performance and new metrics to track team effectiveness and product quality. The transformation demanded technical clarity, knowledge transfer and alignment across multiple teams working with legacy systems and new technologies simultaneously.
Modernizing Mercadona’s Enterprise Software Architecture
Mercadona, one of the leading supermarket chains in Spain, is undergoing a major transition towards the modernization of its internal applications and enterprise software architecture. The IT department required clear and actionable criteria to guide the design of new applications and services as well as the renewal of legacy systems.
Working closely with the new enterprise architecture team, our goal was to define precise architectural criteria, ensure solution architects fully understood the new concepts, and make the software production process more agile and efficient. Additionally, we helped establish metrics to evaluate both the process and the quality of software development.
Together with the Mercadona team, we defined new criteria regarding microservices sizing and scoping, the use of batch, near-realtime and realtime solutions, and supported the transition towards an Event-Driven Architecture (EDA). All of this was carefully documented and aligned with the company’s overall technology strategy.
Our first collaboration was linked to their takeaway meal system. We developed several microservices and a batch process that enabled the onboarding of new ovens in any supermarket in Spain and ensured the synchronization of recipe books depending on each store’s zone—resulting in smoother and more traceable daily operations.
Technologies Used
Technologies used: Documentation tools and R&D stack, Java, Spring Boot, Angular, Kafka, PostgreSQL.
Results
- New software architecture criteria enabling solution architects to design and implement new applications and services, as well as renew legacy systems.
- Improved understanding and alignment within the enterprise software architecture team regarding new architectural concepts.
- A more agile and efficient software production process, supported by clear metrics to measure process and quality.
- Implementation of microservices and batch processes for the takeaway meal system, enabling automatic onboarding of new ovens nationwide.
- Centralized hardware control, seamless synchronization of new recipes across 3,000 ovens, and an error logging and alarm system for unexpected events.
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