Lamps Plus, one of the largest lighting retailers in the United States, had relied on a robust IBM i system for decades to support every aspect of its growing business. However, over 40 years of continuous development led to significant technical debt, inefficiencies, and barriers to modernization. Partnering with Fresche Solutions, Lamps Plus undertook a comprehensive system cleanup using the X-Analysis tool to reduce legacy code, eliminate unused objects, and build a foundation for future innovation.
Key Results:
- 25% Reduction in Legacy Code: Removed 5,400 unused objects and 11,000 source members, reducing the total object count from 22,222 to under 17,000.
- Improved Developer Productivity: Developers now spend less time searching for relevant code and more time on new projects and modernization.
- Streamlined System Maintenance: Backups and day-end operations are faster and more efficient, saving time and resources.
- Modernization Readiness: The cleanup makes it easy to take on database normalization, code updates, and future projects.
Company Overview
Lamps Plus is a leading retailer specializing in lighting, furniture, and home décor. Founded over 45 years ago in Los Angeles, the company has grown into an omnichannel powerhouse with a strong e-commerce platform and stores nationwide. Offering over 90,000 products, including exclusive designs, Lamps Plus helps customers bring their creative visions to life, both online and in-store.
The Challenge: Navigating 40 Years of Legacy Code and System Complexity
Lamps Plus’s IT infrastructure relied on a homegrown ERP system built in the 1980s. While the legendary IBM i platform remained technically reliable, decades of continuous development resulted in a buildup of unused code, outdated processes, and redundant data objects.
This created several challenges:
- System Overload: Over 22,000 objects, each with a source member, plus an additional 6,000 source members without objects, created a complex and cluttered environment that was hard to navigate.
- Developer Inefficiency: Developers spent too much time locating relevant code, slowing down research, bug fixes, and enhancement projects.
- Cumbersome Maintenance: Outdated code caused slow backups and prolonged day-end tasks.
- Modernization Roadblocks: The sheer volume of legacy code made system upgrades and new technology projects difficult.
With growing e-commerce demands and evolving customer expectations, IT leaders recognized the need for a strategic cleanup to streamline the system and prepare for future innovation.
The Solution: System Cleanup and Streamlining with X-Analysis
Lamps Plus has maintained a long-standing strategic partnership with Fresche Solutions for over a decade, originally leveraging WebSmart to transition their business users from green screens to modern browser-based web applications. While this foundational work modernized the user experience and improved business agility, years of accumulated technical debt from their homegrown ERP and legacy code was preventing deeper progress.
Recognizing that retaining outdated code could slow innovation, Lamps Plus launched a dedicated cleanup effort. By expanding the use of X-Analysis, the team focused on identifying and removing obsolete code, reducing system noise, and improving developer efficiency.
“We knew that there was a tremendous volume of those objects that were no longer used and hadn’t been in quite some time… It would be highly beneficial for us as a team from a support perspective to not have all this extra noise on the platform.”
— Daniel Nelson, Director of Enterprise Applications
Lamps Plus
While WebSmart improved the user experience, it also revealed the underlying complexity of their backend systems, making a thorough cleanup more urgent. Using X-Analysis, the team implemented a systematic cleanup strategy to make the process efficient and reliable:
- Comprehensive System Analysis
X-Analysis was used to scan the environment and identify objects not used in over two years. The tool’s visual mapping ensured no active dependencies were missed. - Batch Processing and Archiving
Objects were removed in controlled batches, starting small and increasing as the team gained confidence. Every object slated for removal was archived so it could be restored if needed. - Source Member Cleanup
Inactive source members, including over 6,000 that were not tied to any objects, were purged to streamline both runtime and development environments. - Team Enablement
Even a developer new to IBM i could lead the project efficiently thanks to X-Analysis’s intuitive interface and reliable, visual reporting.
X-Analysis’s advanced cross-referencing tools and visual data flow diagrams enabled a clear understanding of dependencies and supported confident decision-making at every step. For Mac Callamaras, Developer Analyst II and newest team member, “Using the data flow diagram was especially useful to identify what was only being called by the thing that we identified as no longer useful… We would target 50 objects, and that would turn into 250 objects.”
Equipped with these insights, Mac has been able to lead essential cleanup work confidently:
“X-Analysis made it approachable for me to take on a task of this size and risk level. If you’re deleting thousands of objects, you don’t want to delete the wrong ones.”
The Results: A Lean and Modernization-Ready IBM i Platform
The cleanup initiative at Lamps Plus delivered measurable improvements across the organization, addressing both immediate operational challenges and long-term modernization goals. By eliminating system clutter and reducing technical debt, the team established a clean, agile technical foundation that ensures future projects can move forward efficiently.
- 25% Reduction in Technical Debt: Removed 5,400 unused objects and over 11,000 source members, reducing the object count from 22,222 to under 17,000.
- Increased Developer Efficiency: Developers now navigate the system with ease, cutting research time and boosting productivity.
- Simplified Maintenance: Faster backups and simplified day-end processes save time and valuable resources daily.
- Foundation for Modernization: The leaner system enables easier database normalization, fixed-format code upgrades, and other modernization projects.
These improvements not only streamline IT operations but also enable Lamps Plus to better meet the demands of its growing e-commerce platform and customer expectations.
“The cleanup sets a foundation for future projects, making every project from this point forward that much more palatable.”
— Mac Callamaras, Developer Analyst II
Lamps Plus
Looking Ahead: Long-Term Improvements
The cleanup at Lamps Plus is ongoing, marking the start of a larger journey toward a leaner, more modern IBM i environment. With initial redundancies addressed, the team is now focusing on deeper improvements, such as removing embedded dead code and consolidating day-end operations. These efforts will simplify maintenance, improve developer onboarding, and accelerate modernization.
With support from Fresche Solutions and by exploring AI capabilities in X-Analysis, Lamps Plus is well-positioned to continue optimizing its system and evolving with its growing business.
