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Case Studies

Distribution

Alba Spectrum Technologies

 

Metal Recycler and Wholesaler

 

Situation


Client had industry specific requirements to provide bids to its customers with 5 decimals of $ price.  Also vendor had requirements to provide Custom Order status report and several mandatory reports, with 5 decimals of $.  In order to provide real-time quotes to the customer the query, showing historical quoted price and average current price for the product with immediate drill down to historical quotes was needed.

 

Our approach

 

In order to provide immediate drill down to historical docs and calculate average price/cost, plus provide required reporting we suggested

-          Dexterity customization in Sales and Purchasing modules

-          Aggregated SQL query to feed information into custom inquiry window

-     Dexterity custom report with 5 decimals of $

 

Results

 

-          All the operations were automated in Great Plains

-         All the reporting requirements were met

 

Industry: Distribution

Applications: Great Plains

Technologies: Dexterity, SQL Server: Stored Procs, Crystal Reports

 

 

 

Specialty Food Wholesaler

 

Situation

 

Specialty Food Processor/Wholesaler was looking for industry specific solution: similar food components purchased from different suppliers in different containers, cases, etc.  Further complication was - the same items from the same supplier may vary in weight and so in final production, measured in pounds.  The necessity of strict control was a must, due to presence of retail subdivision, selling from the same inventory location.

 

Our approach

 

Due to uniqueness, business systems software market could not offer off-the-shelf solution.  We suggested and implemented customization in several Great Plains modules:

- Sales Order Processing

- Inventory Control

- Purchasing

in order to create Variable Weight Items Inventory, Purchasing and Sales System

Technology:

 - Great Plains Dexterity (Great Plains proprietary programming tool) customization;

 - SQL Stored Procedures to provide instant historical orders info

 

Results

 

Business processes were automated by the Great Plains system:

- Accurate inventory of variable-weight components

- Accurate estimation of purchasing needs from suppliers, based on historical information

- Automation of retail sales with strict control

- Order taking over the internet

 

Industry: Distribution

Applications: Great Pains

Technologies: Dexterity, SQL

 

 

Soft Drinks Maker/Wholesaler

 

Situation


Business System had multiple loosely integrated subsystems, some of them had obsolete technology, discontinued by manufacturers and with no longer support available.  Meanwhile company needed daily international sales reporting by multiple criteria.  The choice should be made between expensive OLAP/Datawarehousing solutions, integrated with new Mid-Market accounting package and less expensive solution, deploying set of relatively flexible Crystal Reports, pulling information from Mid-Market accounting.  Also the complexity of the transition year was the necessity to address existing legacy system data in reporting system

 

Our approach

 

In order to save money we suggested less expensive and easy to maintain Great Plains and Crystal Reporting solution, based on the distributed queries from legacy database with following year end switch to Great Plains

-          Data conversion with Integration Manager and SQL custom queries from legacy accounting to Great Plains on Microsoft Windows 2000 server

-          Light Manufacturing automation via Bill of Materials

-          Crystal Reports for providing daily sales reporting needs

-          Integration Manager for GL and Purchasing data import

Technology:

-          SQL Distributed views and stored procs

-      Crystal Report, based on distributed queries

-     Light Dexterity triggers for Bill of assemblies

-          Integration Manager, Frx

 

Results

 

- All company operation are now based on one system: Great Plains

- Sales reports do not require additional maintenance, maybe called by request and pull the information from standard Great Plains databases

- Customer requests are processed in real time through Great Plains inquiry screens

 

Industry: Distribution, Manufacturing

Applications: Great Plains

Technologies: SQL Server: Stored Procs, Views, Dexterity, Integration Manager, FRx

 

 

 

Metal Distributor

 

Situation


Company had legacy asp application to enable internet ordering for its clients.  Also company had Microsoft CRM implemented for its Client Orders tracking and Sales automation.  Management was willing to secure its investment into legacy asp application and have it integrated into Microsoft CRM system

 

Our approach

 

We suggested deploying of HTTP handler to enable ASP data transfer into .net web services based Microsoft CRM

-          ASP Page calls url at .net web server which is further processed by custom HTTP handler

-          HTTP handler calls Web service for customer and order creation in Microsoft CRM

 

Results

 

-          Securing former investments in ASP legacy web site and seamless integration with new Microsoft CRM

 

Industry: Distribution

Applications: Microsoft CRM

Technologies: .NET, C#, Web Services

 

 

Alba Spectrum Technologies

Phones

Toll Free: 1-866-528-0577

Office: 1-630-961-5918

Cell (consultant-on-duty): 1-630-854-0597

Email: help@albaspectrum.com   

 

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