Enterprise Logistics and Operations

Light Speed Solutions
Farmingdale, NY USA

The Enterprise Logistics and Operations (ELO) is a brand-new, Web-based application created for the Research and Development group at a major computer company to track parts inventory within the company. Prior to the ELO application, the parts inventory was maintained in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

When new employees are hired, they are each issued a computer with various other components. ELO handles demand, collection, and procurement of the computers and components, as well as inventory tracking.

	Demand Collection - Various departments can request their requirements, allowing a central department to consolidate them before ordering.
	Procurement - Vendor purchase orders are tracked to make sure the orders are placed and arrive on time. When items are received, the application reads the bar codes and allocates the inventory to the proper warehouse locations. Within a warehouse, the location can be fine-tuned to a bin number.
	Fulfillment - Based on demand, the received items are assigned to the requested user which allows a user to keep a running balance of their allocated inventory.
	Inventory Tracking - When employees assign their allocated inventory to another user, e-mails are sent to confirm the reassignment. This ensures the borrower of the inventory is responsible for the items.

Application size and scope

One Microsoft SQL Server database is comprised of more than 30 database tables, 10 database views and 250 Web pages. The Inventory Items table is the largest and contains approximately 80,000 to 100,000 records. ELO is accessed by 10 to 20 users each month, each processing a large number of transactions.

The project

The Iron Speed Designer portion of the project took only one month of development. We spent an additional month incorporating code customizations and one month of beta testing and fine-tuning.

Code extensions and customizations

Approximately 5,000 lines of custom code were written for this application. The major customizations included:

	Multiple child records in one transaction
	E-mail notifications
	Bar code reader integration
	Look and feel customization
	Pop-up windows to make editing records easier
	Integrated menus and help
	Flexible run-time granular security, which allows users to modify their access
	Custom data export functions
	Inventory reports

We incorporated several third-party controls, including Telerik Menus, Telerik Tree and Telerik Tabs. We also added custom code to enhance the users' search capability. To date, users can search up to 90,000 records in less than 3 seconds.

Page layout customizations

We designed a totally new design theme for this application. Due to a specific security requirement, each child table was brought into the application using a custom .ascx control. The new control was designed in Iron Speed Designer.

Iron Speed Designer impact

There is no way to estimate the time saved using Iron Speed Designer for this project.

This application replaced an existing Peregrine application which had cost the company over $1 million in development. Iron Speed Designer allowed us to replace this application for less than $20,000. This project would not have been feasible without Iron Speed Designer. We would have had to hire contractors to write code from the ground up and the cost would have been at least $50,000 or more.

Next steps

The ELO application was customized to the customer's exact requirements. It is currently being extended to address other department needs, including enhanced purchase order tracking, customer export functions, and additional page layout customization with custom views. The customer is very interested in continuing development with Iron Speed Designer, with plans to integrate the application into the main company inventory system.

About the developer

Jason graduated from Nassau Community College with Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Information Systems. For the last ten years, Jason has developed applications with various programming languages such as Java, C++, VB, SQL, JavaScript, CSS, VB.NET, and C#.

Jason is so enthusiastic about Iron Speed Designer that he now refuses to create an application without it. He feels all application development is possible using Iron Speed Designer.