Clients: Allied Pickfords
Labels
If any application needs to show how sheer simplicity and usefulness go together - this is it.
This application, built in Microsoft Access, prints labels with client's name, client's destination and inventory number. The labels are prepared in advance, on the packing day they are simply attached to every parcel / box. Of course the company's logo and branch appear as well on the label, which makes it easy to trace a box in case of any mistake. Customers are well impressed with the labels, which are obviously made especially for them. (screenshot in pop up window)
With many branches over the UK, which own and operate their own vehicles, it is vital to keep an overview on all the vehicle movements, and combine loads where possible. The existing application, helping to administer vehicle movements and labour assistances throughout the UK started to show flaws, and because it was based on an old platform, it was decided to rebuild it from scratch.
The new system, which uses a Microsoft front end and a SQL server back end database, was received very well by the team. Paul Tucker, Central Operations' manager says: "The transition to the new system went remarkably well. Of course there were a few minor issues, but that was expected with a project of this size. The reports are much clearer than the previous ones!"
Assets register
Administrates asset costs, lifetime, residual values, net book values. Dispose assets, or allocate assets to another branch. The system produces a monthly journal (15000+ records) in Excel format, which is imported in Oracle.
A similar system was used before, however this previous system made irreversible changes to the data every time a journal was produced. Improper use of the system would lead to administration chaos. The new system which was designed from scratch, does not make any irreversible changes and is therefore fool proof. Now the system accepts any date, or date range and produces journals and various management reports accordingly. (screenshot in pop up window)
Especially with reference to a Quality Management System framework such as ISO 9001, a system monitoring the quality of suppliers, departments and branches is extremely important. The application, called "Questor" has been installed on every computer, allowing anyone to lodge an action of non-conformance. Raised issues are monitored centrally, thus making it possible to follow up and action where necessary. The application communicates fluently with Outlook, making it easy to set reminders, or produce an e-mail, without the need to retype any information.
There are is a normal and a superuser version. Instead of two seperate applications, only one was built which can easily be converted from one version to another. Therefore the maintenance is very easy.
