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Our consultants have helped several large corporations to resolve highly complex issues and to achieve their strategic goals. Most of our clients provide computing services to internal departments or external customers and come to us seeking technical guidance.
We offer our clients the following benefits:
- highly skilled professionals that build and lead strong project teams in your organization
- encouragement of full cooperation, collaboration, and participation by all team members resulting in maximum effectiveness and productivity
- mentoring of your employees resulting in the building of your corporate knowledge base and maximization of your investment in human resources
- promoting dynamic teams that proactively prepare for the challenges of an ever-changing environment
- emphasizing a total commitment to quality and complete customer satisfaction
Listed below are some of the specific projects in which our consultants have been involved.
- Data Warehousing
- Distributed Computing
- Client/Server
- Web Site
Data warehousing -
Client Requirements: A national
banking institution wanted to automate some of its reporting procedures to reduce costs
and eliminate duplication of effort thereby increasing the effectiveness of their
personnel. The reports were being produced, sent to a central location, then reentered
into a database.
Our Solution: We provided analysis
and system design to help to achieve their objectives. We recommended and helped to
implement NT SQL Servers at several head offices throughout the country. Data was
collected from the local banking systems, converted to a common format, and stored in
these databases. The data was then sent through an existing TCP/IP network to data marts
in the central collection point.
The Results: The transfer of data was
fully automated. Paperwork was eliminated as well as the cost of producing the reports and
then reentering the data. The data warehouse provided their management with the ability to
analyze the data in ways that were not possible with the static reports. Employee’s
time was freed up to increase their productivity in other areas. Overall costs were
drastically reduced.
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Distributed Computing -
Client Requirements: A national
banking institution had several requirements for an existing cash inventory tracking
system. They needed the application to:
- keep current with the latest standard operating systems
that evolve each year or two;
- offer increased ease-of-use to the users;
- be flexible enough to easily incorporate on-going
enhancements requested by the users;
- maintain high levels of performance;
- be scalable enough to allow deployment per office,
district, geographical region, or centralized location;
- reduce the cost of workstation ownership.
Our Solution: We brought our
Powerbuilder and MS SQL Server expertise to the project and migrated an existing DOS
application storing data in a flat format into a Windows application accessing a
relational database. Several years after the initial migration and successful
implementation of the application, we further converted it to a 3-tiered distributed
architecture.
The Results: The application
was capable of running under all versions of the Windows operating systems including 3.1,
95, and NT. The application was easier to use due to a GUI front end offering
familiar and user-friendly data entry components. It also provided ad-hoc querying
and reporting capabilities from a multitude of SQL-based tools. Due to the use of
object-oriented analysis, design, and coding practices, overall maintenance and testing
time was reduced while still allowing many enhancements to be implemented on a timely
basis. By constantly migrating to the latest versions of the development tools and
database management system and deploying the latest technical methodologies, performance
requirements were able to be met or exceeded during the same period that the functional
requirements continued to grow. The use of a distributed architecture allowed the
application to be scaled from deployment in each individual office up to deployment
in head offices for several branches, and further up to regions consisting of
several head offices. This same architecture offered increased portability allowing the
back-end database platform to be replaced by that of a different vendor if the need arose
in the future. The cost of ownership of user’s workstations was reduced by
minimizing the hardware requirements of the thinner clients.
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Client/Server -
Client Requirements: A power
company needed to record all safety-related observations in their nuclear facility. This
data was needed to detect possible health risks, track trends in mechanical and electrical
equipment failure, and expedite the resolution of all indicated problems.
Our Solution: We developed a
graphical data entry application allowing them to capture all observation information and
properly categorize both the incident and its resolution. The application was made
available to workers at all levels and the data was stored in a SQL Server database at
each location.
The Results: Supervisors and
managers were able to monitor incidents of human error and develop training programs to
prevent future incidents. They were also able to track equipment malfunctions to help
evaluate vendor products and ensure greater quality control.
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Web Site -
Client Requirements: A small
service firm was looking to increase the size of their staff and take on more
customers. They were having difficulty finding qualified individuals in their local
area. They wanted a low-cost advertising solution to attract applicants from other
states and to make their services known to potential clients.
Our Solution: We developed a
web site using Microsoft FrontPage 98 and content provided by the client. The site
used a consistent theme for ease-of-use. Graphics were used sparingly to speed up
page loading. The pages were tested using various versions of the leading browsers
to insure that they could be displayed well to the majority of visitors. Standard
navigational buttons were used on the top, left side, and bottom of each page allowing the
visitors to easily and quickly get to the areas of their interest. Many routes
(e.g., phone, mail, e-mail) were provided to contact the company to obtain more
information. We helped them to register a domain name (e.g., companyname.com) for
brand recognition and registered their name with popular search engines to direct
prospects to their site.
The Results: The company was
able to attract applicants from all over the country and expose their services to many
local companies that were not previously aware of their offerings. The site
development cycle was short and the monthly web hosting fees were far less than most
traditional forms of advertising.
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