Techno-Coat, Inc. |
Powder Web |
"We saved four months of application development time and $40,000 in costs
using Iron Speed Designer."
- Chris Allen of Influx Networking
|
|
|
Powder Web |
Techno-Coat, Inc.
Holland, MI USA
|
The Powder Web application was developed for Techno-Coat, Inc., a powder coat solution
provider in West Michigan. Powder Web is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application
used by everyone in Techno-Coat. The Powder Web application was a new application developed
to replace a purchased application.
This application provides complete ERP for Techno-Coat, including order entry, production
scheduling, shop floor reporting, shipping, and invoicing. It also includes inventory,
purchasing, receiving, quoting, and quality control systems.
Recipe (Bill of Material and Manufacturing Operations)
The core of the system is the inventory and production control. Parts are received and
either placed into inventory or directly in the production line, depending on the production
schedule. The shop floor schedule is the key. This is where we need to quickly access all
production-related information and keep everyone in the operation informed.
As parts are needed, the schedule is used to pull parts from inventory. This creates a paper
traveler that stays with the parts and enables the people pulling material from inventory to
know where to get it. The paper traveler also acts as the identification for that group of
parts. With the Powder Web application, the processing instructions for the parts can be pulled
up by the paper traveler on any terminal on the shop floor as the parts are processed.
The traveler and the quick links on the schedule allow role-base viewing of the processing
instructions. The software is set up so that the routing and bill of materials are predefined.
Some material goes on for final assembly, while other product gets ready for shipping to the
end user. Because of this, we need flexible labeling and documentation that allows us to
react to the greatly different shipping requirements. Labeling is applied in production,
and a single barcode scan allows parts to be shipped with almost no user input other than
scanning the material as it is loaded onto the truck.
Shipping screen
We set up documentation to ensure customers receive goods from shippers best suited for
their needs. This data is a direct input into their system and includes various electronic
methods as well as traditional paper.
Once a shipment is made, all information transfers to the accounting and custom invoicing
parts of the system. Our customers have diverse invoicing requirements. The Powder Web
application allowed us to develop a flexible invoicing process. We invoice quickly yet
differently to each of our customers. Some never receive invoices, others get custom
electronic files, and a few still get paper invoices.
Production schedule
Once invoices are created, a summary file is sent to the MAS90 accounting software for
GL and financial reporting.
|
Application size and scope |
Our application uses one Microsoft SQL Server database, comprised of 112 tables and 23 views.
The largest database table is InventoryTransactions, an item ledger that tracks all inventory
movement. It consists of approximately 3.5 million rows. There are 190 Web pages in the
application, which are used by 30 users per month, processing an estimated 700,000 transactions
per month.
|
The project |
The Powder Web Techno-Coat application took six team members 18 months to implement. The entire
Powder Web application was developed using Iron Speed Designer.
|
Code extensions and customizations |
We wrote approximately 10,000 lines of custom code and extensions, mostly to populate the fields
and automatically add rows. We didn't use third-part components, although we did use Javascript
and AJAX. In all, our code customizations took less than 40 hours to write.
|
Page layout customizations |
We did do some layout customization. We moved the buttons around some to make data entry
easier. (If you put the + button after the table, it gets focus and speeds up data entry of
multiple rows. An added benefit is that your hands never have to leave the keyboard.)
We used the standard Fuji design theme in Iron Speed Designer.
|
Iron Speed Designer impact |
Our project would have been feasible without using Iron Speed Designer, but would have taken
at least 22 months. We believe that by using Iron Speed Designer, we saved four months of
development time and $40,000 in development costs.
|
Next steps |
We plan to add many more features to the Powder Web Techno-Coat application, as we include
other departments in the company. However, we will add more users or deploy to additional
sites only as needed.
|
About the developers |
Chris Allen has a B.S. in Industrial Administration from GMI Engineering and Management Institute
(now Kettering University). His development background includes 20 years in the field of programming,
starting with mainframes and migrating to ASP, PHP, MySQL, and .NET as new technologies have evolved.
David Hering has been working in small business tier two suppliers to the automotive and office furniture
industries for 17 years. He currently manages and maintains the computer systems at Techno Coat, Inc. Adapting
and complying with the needs of our customers and end-customers is the key to success. He has been supporting
the customer who has little or no technical support and delivering to the end-customer, fully meeting the
end-customer's documentation requirements. By supporting the internal operations, the end-customer gets the
quality product he needs.
|
|
|
|
|