From delivery to invoicing, there is no denying that databases with accurate addresses are a must for manufacturers. A single incorrect record can cause a product delivery to fail, an invoice to go unpaid, or a marketing promotion to miss its audience. That’s why address validation plays a crucial role for successful manufacturers to operate efficiently.
Every touchpoint in manufacturing depends on clean, accurate addresses. Here are just a few examples of how poor address data affects daily operations:
When you consider that manufacturers may manage thousands or even millions of address records across customers, vendors, and partners, it’s clear why manual checks or outdated tools aren’t enough. Automated solutions that deliver real-time data validation are the only way to keep large-scale address lists accurate and usable.
An Address Validation API is a service designed to verify and standardize postal addresses against authoritative databases such as USPS or international postal lists. By embedding validation into data entry points, like CRM systems, order management platforms, or ERP systems, companies can stop incorrect data before it flows downstream.
Verification and Standardization
Determines whether an address exists and is formatted correctly according to postal standards. It fixes misspellings (e.g., “Mane St.” to “Main St.”), standardizes abbreviations, and fills in missing details like ZIP+4 codes.
Component Identification
Breaks an address into structured fields (street, city, state, postal code). Developers can then validate each component separately, ensuring accuracy at every level.
Geocoding
Returns latitude and longitude coordinates for each validated address. This is useful for logistics planning, territory assignments, and delivery route optimization.
Deliverability Assessment
Indicates the likelihood that a shipment will reach its destination. While it doesn’t guarantee delivery, it flags addresses that postal services can’t verify, reducing costly return-to-sender scenarios.
Fraud Prevention
Verifies addresses at the point of entry, reducing fraudulent or incorrect orders from slipping into the system. For manufacturers selling direct-to-consumer, this is an extra layer of security.
By combining these features, an API ensures that address lists are reliable, standardized, and ready for use across business systems.
From a developer’s perspective, the biggest advantage of an Address Validation API is that it integrates validation into the workflow where the data is created or updated. For example:
This prevents dirty data from ever reaching production systems. Without real-time validation, developers are forced to build manual cleanup jobs or batch processes to fix expensive and time-consuming errors that never fully solve the root problem.
For IBM i developers, building an API connection from scratch can be a challenge. That’s why Kato Integrations created a prebuilt toolkit designed specifically for IBM i environments.
Instead of spending weeks coding validation logic or connecting to postal databases yourself, you can start confirming addresses in the Address IBM i toolkit with little intervention in a fraction of the time. This approach not only saves development time but also delivers measurable business value through fewer shipping errors, faster invoice delivery, and more effective marketing campaigns.
Address validation is just the first of several prebuilt Kato IBM i toolkits that can help streamline data integration and reduce development time for manufacturers. Would you like to learn more? Contact us today!
Coming up in Part 2: We’ll take a closer look at the UPS Toolkit for IBM i. When combined with address validation, it ensures packages are routed correctly, deliveries are faster, and customers receive their orders without unnecessary delays.