Find the integration problems before Day 1 does.
Integration Copilot is an AI assistant for the technology side of an acquisition: which applications to keep, migrate or retire, whether the business can run on Day 1, how to exit the transition services agreement, and what belongs in the integration RAID log.
Week 1 is the test bed. It's a realistic, fully fictional carve-out with twelve integration issues planted across its documents, so the copilot can be scored on what it finds.
Meridian buys Ridgeway from Calder
A carve-out: Ridgeway has its own legal entities, but many of its IT services run on its parent's shared platforms. That's where most integration trouble hides.
| Acquirer | Target | Seller | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Meridian Home Brands | Ridgeway Outdoor Co. | Calder Industries |
| Business | Home and garden consumer products | Camping and outdoor gear | Diversified industrial and consumer holding company |
| Revenue | About $2.8B | About $640M | About $9B |
| Employees | About 5,600 | About 2,100 (US and Canada) | |
| Core systems | SAP S/4HANA, Workday, Salesforce, Microsoft 365 | Oracle EBS 12.2 on Calder's shared instance, Kinaxis, Blue Yonder WMS, Shopify |
Day 1. Signing was December 15, 2026. The rule for Day 1: no customer, employee or supplier should notice the close.
For Ridgeway to move onto Meridian's platforms as a business unit.
Annual IT run-rate savings targeted by the end of year two.
Everything here is fictional. Companies, people, figures and contract terms are invented. Real software product names appear only so the inventories read like a real IT estate.
The documents an integration lead actually gets
Application inventories, contract summaries, an interface list, a draft TSA, diligence transcripts and deal-team emails. Most issues only show up when you read across them.
Acquirer applications
Meridian's inventory
Target applications
Ridgeway's, with Calder and TSA ownership marked
Vendor contracts
With assignment and change-of-control terms
Interfaces
Ridgeway's system-to-system integrations
TSA services
Draft term sheet: durations, exclusions, open points
Transcripts
IT diligence and finance close walkthrough
Emails
Canada payroll and the Calder TSA manager
Deal profile
Timeline, channels, seasonality, intent
Twelve planted issues. Find at least ten.
- Give it the data only. Load everything in the data zip into your assistant. Keep the answer key out of its reach.
- Ask for the four deliverables an integration lead needs (copy the prompt below).
- Score it against the answer key. One point per issue found, half a point if the severity or action is wrong. Note any confident claims the data doesn't support.
You are the IT integration lead for Meridian Home Brands' acquisition of Ridgeway Outdoor Co. from Calder Industries. Day 1 is April 1, 2027. Using only the attached files, produce: 1. An application disposition matrix for Ridgeway's applications (keep, migrate to a Meridian platform, retire, or replace), with the reason for each 2. A Day-1 readiness assessment: anything that would stop the business operating normally on April 1, 2027 3. A TSA exit plan, service by service, with dates and dependencies 4. An integration RAID log with an owner, date and source file for every entry Cite the file behind every finding. If the data doesn't support a claim, say so rather than guessing.
Answer key, in brief
Spoilers. Run your copilot first.
| # | Issue | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Payroll has nowhere to run on Day 1, and Canada has no target platform at all | Day-1 stopper |
| 2 | Supplier payments break: the file transfer is in the TSA, but the treasury system downstream is not | Day-1 stopper |
| 3 | Online card payments stop: the merchant account belongs to the seller | Day-1 stopper |
| 4 | The Q2 quarter close falls outside the consolidation TSA | High |
| 5 | The CRM auto-renews for 36 months a month before Day 1 | High |
| 6 | Warehouse system needs change-of-control consent within 30 days of close | High |
| 7 | EDI cutover runs into the retail change freeze | High |
| 8 | The pricing tool, an Access database on one laptop, is labeled low criticality | High |
| 9 | The only ERP developer's contract ends at close | High |
| 10 | Consumer marketing data may not transfer under GDPR | Medium |
| 11 | Shadow IT missing from the inventory: a peak-season tracker on a personal card | Medium |
| 12 | Identity exit has a hard deadline that lands in peak season | Medium |
The full key lists the evidence files and the expected finding for each, plus six lesser findings worth credit.
Get the dataset
Use the data zip with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or any assistant that accepts files. Keep the answer key separate.
To change the inventories, contracts or interfaces, edit scripts/build_dataset.py in the full package and run python scripts/build_dataset.py. It needs only Python 3.
Part of a series
Week 1 of the Integration Copilot project. Related work: the Virtual PMO Agent for RAID logs and status reporting, and WodWatts.