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A long-established manufacturer of rubber dipped products for marine and medical markets.
The company operate an automated latex dipping production line. Assorted formers (moulds) are dipped into latex, dried and stripped. The production line lacked the ability to track individual items and production data was collated during the inspection process and entered in a database by-hand. This caused issues monitoring production, delays receiving important information and data input errors. The company are moving towards fully integrated production monitoring systems and required an intermediary system to alleviate existing issues and to help establish requirements for a long-term development.
RFID tags were added to identify and track the formers along the production line. An RFID scanner was added to key points in the production line. A bespoke RFID reader was created using Raspberry PIs which collected the scan data and stored it both in a local SQL Server database and in the Microsoft Azure IOT hub. Touch screens were added to enable the operation of the RFID and display scan information. A software service was created to process the scanned data and import it into the existing production database for reporting.
The Raspberry PIs proved an effective and reliable method to collect scan data even when operating in high temperatures. The small sized devices were easily integrated into the existing production line. The touch screens provided immediate feedback to the production line operators enabling issues to be identified and resolved. Realtime production line data incorporated into reporting transformed production management facilitating improved planning, provided a valuable resource for analytics and eliminated data entry errors.
A multinational producer of drywall products and systems for partitions and ceilings.
The company had an existing learning management system (LMS) which they found to be inflexible. When creating similar courses, it was difficult to reuse content and identical changes needed to be made in multiple places. It was also difficult to present the same content in different ways to different users. It was not possible to incorporate new custom features which limited their ability to innovate.
Working closely with the company, we designed a modular course creation system which can maintained entirely online. Courses can be added, edited and deleted. Text and graphics are uploaded through the browser and a rich text editor allows text to be formatted as required. A series of templates enables users to quickly create content without worrying about layouts. Courses can be created using components which can be updated through-out the course system, cascading changes to multiple courses ensuring that all content is up-to-date. A secure user management system was added to allow different user access levels including administrators, editors, trainers and students. Courses can be attended by individual students or used for classroom training. Performances can be scored, and certificates awarded.
The bespoke LMS put the company in charge and in control of their content. The more efficient module update mechanism saves a great deal of time maximising content re-use. Detailed analytics help understand course performance and enables informed revisions. The bespoke design means that new features and innovations can be added without the restrictions of a prebuilt system. The company recently won an award for their digital content provision of which a major part was the courses presented on the LMS.
The company is a global supplier of a medical product.
The company required an e-commerce platform to distribute their product around the world. The platform needed to integrate securely with payment service providers to process customer payments. As the product is sold to different countries the website needed to be localised to the appropriate country including translated text, terms and conditions and shipping. An order management system was required to help process and fulfil the orders and integrate with Sage Accounts.
Due to the multifaceted nature of the company’s requirements, a bespoke rather than an off-the-shelf solution was developed for this project. This provided the flexibility to adjust content to the cultural, legal and business requirements of different regions whilst standardising processes and branding as well as maximising content re-use. Working with specialist partners, translated versions of the English language website were created in French, German, Spanish and Polish. Australian, New Zealand and American versions were also created. A bespoke shopping cart system was integrated with Sage Pay for card processing. An order management system was created to enable the fulfilment of orders for different regions, including facilitating fulfilment by local agents where appropriate. A bespoke automated system was used to validate order payments both through Sage Pay and eBay and import data into Sage Accounts. A cloud architecture was used for reliability, scaling and geolocation.
The company has been very successful and continues to expand internationally. The website has been central to the company’s growth and success. The bespoke cloud powered solution provides the flexibility to adjust strategies and policies without disrupting sales.
A multinational producer of drywall products and systems for partitions and ceilings.
The company has an extensive product catalogue with thousands of options and variations. The products are suitable for different applications and different markets. Installers and specifiers need to calculate the quantities of associated products required to provide estimates. The company wanted an application to be available for desktops, tablets and mobiles to make it easy for their customers to intuitively explore and understand their products without having to consult detailed specification booklets. Product details were expected to change periodically, and the application would need to be kept up-to-date.
A product calculator was identified as the most effective method to communicate the company’s product range providing both a useful tool and an easy, productive way to discover products. An intuitive product filtering system grouped the products first by use, for example, sound proofing and then by application, for example, wall lining. Room dimensions can be entered into the application ensuring that customers are provided with both a complete solution including additional products and a shopping list which can be taken to a stockist. To make locating a stockist easy, a locate your nearest stockist feature was included. A JavaScript, html format was selected to ensure that only one version of the application needs to be updated minimising maintenance. This was then integrated into both a website and a hybrid mobile application for the Google and Apple application stores, effectively using a single code base for multiple applications.
The calculator has proven popular with customers receiving thousands of views. Detailed analytics provide an in-depth insight into customer requirements informing product development. Product updates to the calculator have been made easy using the single code base.
The leading commercial vehicle maintenance provider in the South West of England and South Wales.
The company operates a separate administration centre to their maintenance premises. Details of customer vehicle maintenance costs were stored in a Microsoft Access database. Data for invoicing was printed out, passed on to the administration centre and keyed onto Sage Accounts by operators. The company required a system to connect Microsoft Access to save the time spent re-keying and to eliminate data entry errors. Differences between the way data was stored in Access and the way that it was formatted in Sage Accounts meant that it could not be directly imported.
A connection was set up between the two company locations. Bespoke software was then created that processed the Microsoft Access data and imported it as invoices into Sage Accounts. The differences between the Microsoft Access data and format required for Sage was handled by using logical rules developed with the Company to transform the data ready for invoicing.
The software saves 100’s of hours of data input each year and has eliminated data input errors that were caused by re-keying.
