A Smarter Path to Project Closeout

A Simple Ask That Wasn’t Simple

Delta Air Lines, one of the world’s largest airlines, contracted with multiple entities, including designers, engineers, and contractors, all working together to completely rebuild LaGuardia and JFK airports. With those programs now drawing to a close, Derive has the critical responsibility to prepare massive amounts of documentation to be archived by Delta’s corporate office.

Before its sunset, every file generated across these two projects must be properly archived and preserved for tax, audit, and records purposes by ingesting it into Delta’s archive platform. The majority of the project data resided in servers provided by Derive early in the projects.

Delta’s initial ask was narrow: rename files to fit a character-length limit. After beginning this effort, Derive determined that the organization needed support to define these requirements. The team consisted of construction professionals, not IT infrastructure specialists.

More Than a Rename

Rather than executing a narrow task and walking away, Derive dug in to understand the actual goal. Through weeks of discovery, the team mapped the full scope: multiple source systems, separate retention requirements for each project, exports to local disk, renaming and reformatting into very specific naming structures, and finally ingestion into Delta’s archival system in coordination with Delta’s IT team.

Derive established a readiness process: reviewing the existing infrastructure, making sure the on-premises file shares were backed up and reviewable, and building repeatable procedures to export data from each source system so it could be organized and prepared for ingestion.

How the Project Unfolded

Phase 1: Assessment and Readiness

Derive reviewed the infrastructure and file shares, confirmed the critical on-premises data was backed up and reviewable, and established procedures for exporting data from the existing file shares.

Phase 2: File Remediation at Scale

Through staff augmentation, Derive placed three dedicated specialists working five days a week to download, rename, and reorganize hundreds of thousands of files, many of them individual project-closure documents, into ingestion-ready folder structures.

Phase 3: A Bespoke Remediation Tool

The manual process was slow and tedious. Using recent advances in AI-assisted development, Derive’s practice lead built a custom GUI-driven application that could be built and put to work in a short period of time, work that would have taken far longer through traditional development. The tool scans for naming violations, applies a shared glossary, renames files in batches directly from a single interface, color-codes completion status so finished folders can be set aside at a glance, and generates audit logs that both prove the work performed and allow for stepped rollbacks should errors be discovered.

Phase 4: Managed Data Ingestion

Derive took the driver’s seat on ingestion itself. The team designed and deployed the architecture to move the data into Delta’s archival system, hosting an application on Delta’s existing server. The team coordinated and batched ingestion jobs with Delta’s teams, recycling freed storage as data moved up so the wind-down could proceed without buying new hardware.

Engagement Timeline

• Engagement began: late 2024
• Staff augmentation onboarded: March to May 2025
• Custom remediation tool built: mid-2025
• Phase 1 (JFK) file renaming: completed ahead of schedule for the end-of-July 2026 deadline
• Managed data ingestion: ongoing

What Changed

A renaming effort that was on track to miss the Phase 1 deadline instead finished its key milestones ahead of schedule. The custom tool eliminated the constant switching between spreadsheets and file systems, sped renaming dramatically, and produced a defensible audit trail of exactly what was changed and when.

By taking ownership of the pre-ingestion architecture, Derive removed the coordination challenges that had slowed progress, bridging Delta’s project networks and coordinating directly with the entire team. Because the design reused existing infrastructure, Delta avoided unnecessary hardware spend. The work also established a repeatable blueprint for closing out similar large-scale programs in the future.

“Derive has been an invaluable partner to Delta’s construction teams at LGA and JFK for several years. Derive provided daily support to our construction management teams on-site, which allowed for immediate response for troubleshooting IT needs.”

— Susan Jenkins, General Manager, Commercial

Why Delta Chose Derive

Derive’s value went beyond execution: it was understanding what the client needed, often when the client was unsure. Where the requirements were not clear, Derive distilled the goal into a working plan, took ownership, and drove the project forward. The custom remediation tool Derive created is the clearest answer to the initial challenge: deep understanding of the client’s environment, paired with modern development capability, delivering a tailored solution on a timeline that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago.

Derive Technologies

Derive Technologies works with organizations navigating complex migrations, data modernization, and long-term technology planning. As an MBE-certified IT solutions provider that spans systems, networking, and applications, Derive brings both the technical breadth and the strategic perspective that large, multi-stakeholder engagements require.

Planning a project closeout or a large-scale data migration? Contact our team.