Replacing a legacy business application
Introduction
Dyson Insulations is a well-established business based in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. Dyson provides loft and cavity insulation and draught-proofing installation services and central heating system installation and breakdown services to domestic properties, usually as part of incentive schemes run by energy companies or local authorities. As well as the head office in Brighouse there are branches in Manchester, Gateshead, Oldbury and Northampton.
The requirement
The company's back office system was developed almost fifteen years ago in Microsoft Access, and although it was a well written database that had many positive features, and it had served the company well, Dyson had outgrown the system and needed a more corporate style solution to accommodate the company's future growth.
Dyson's main requirements for the new database system were to manage and control both its insulation and central heating system divisions. Dyson wanted the new system to replicate many of the positive features from the legacy system, but to be future proof and scalable. Dyson decided on Microsoft SQL Server as the preferred database solution, primarily because of its flexible and scalable structure.
Dyson's business caters for national, regional & company incentive schemes, and therefore it needed the new system to be highly flexible and capable of managing large volumes of records without impacting the speed of the system. It also needed to provide a transparent view of the status of all orders and jobs (current, planned and completed), and for them to be updated automatically when information was changed. It was also essential that all dates (scheduled jobs and activities) were recordable, for tracking and monitoring purposes.
Norman Brown, Dyson's IT Director, explains. "The outgoing system had been written when Dyson's business was operating at a much more modest level than it is today and over time it became impossible to develop it further in order to support the business. However it had many strong features, which we were determined to carry across into the new system, but we also needed something with much greater flexibility that could grow with in line with our business. The system also needed to cater for the complexities of schemes with multiple sponsors, with multiple invoices per scheme and the production of all associated documents for correspondence including order processing and invoices. Integration with our accounting system was paramount, and we felt it was always going to be a challenge to find a system that fitted all of our requirements.
"The system needed to be accessed with variable user permissions and access rights, and custom view screens for each division, which added to the challenge. We set out to review several vertical market software systems, and we also opened discussions with Samarind about a bespoke database."
"We put in considerable effort to fully reviewing off the shelf applications, but found that they were fairly cumbersome, and although some of them could be customised, there was too much of a compromise to make them viable after all elements of the project were considered. Remarkably, the costs of an off the shelf solution actually exceeded that of Samarind's bespoke option, which was surprising."
The solution
After a thorough assessment of the available solutions, Dyson eventually commissioned Samarind to develop its new business application. Following further detailed discussions between Samarind and the key management and end-users at Dyson, the specification was finalised and the core database design created. The system's front-end was then developed using Microsoft's VB.NET framework.
Samarind ensured that the new system reflected the positive elements from the legacy application, whilst adding many useful new features. Usability was a critical area and Samarind designed the system with rigorous role-based security so that Dyson had high levels of configurability to create various user roles within the system. This included facility to customise views/screens to perfectly suit each user's role.
The system design comprised many time saving features to make the system as user-friendly as possible, which included the integration of postcode lookup software, making it quick and easy to enter and check address information. This approach aimed to provide Dyson's team with a more cohesive and faster method of data entry, whilst ensuring accuracy and to aid searching for existing records.
The new application needed to provide Dyson with a flexible method of expediting management information and Samarind used its sophisticated search and find features to provide an enhanced capability. The system also has a range of approximate 40 'standard' formatted reports.
Miranda Pothiawala, Samarind's Software Director commented, "Dyson's business could seem relatively simple at a high level, but there are a range of complexities within its business processes that demanded high levels of flexibility within the system, and we ensured that Dyson's administrators could easily configure the system to meet the needs of the system's users. The business also operates from several regional sites and so the system needed to be well architected to ensure that functionality was consistent across the entire user base.
"In addition, we needed to ensure the database could be expanded in the future without fundamentally affecting the system's characteristics, or its user-friendliness. We drew on our experience of developing scalable, fully integrated systems to ensure the end result precisely met Dyson's requirements. This included the document management element of the system, which needed to automatically produce various forms and documents relating to each scheme and installation."
The outcome
The initial version was delivered into the test environment for user acceptance testing and training. Dyson then operated both the legacy system and the new system in parallel over a period of time to check that the new system operated according to the specification before finally switching over to the new system and rolling it out company wide.
Norman Brown added, "Once the commitment was made it was intended that the project would go ahead as the old system was past its best. We are delighted with the results of this project and Samarind have met all of our expectations, including delivering the new system, on time and to budget."
"They were a pleasure to work with throughout the project and the outcome of the development has been very positive. What's assuring for the future is that Samarind have since made some enhancements to the system to meet a number of industry changes. They have met our expectations and we wouldn't hesitate to use Samarind again in the future."
For more information about Dyson Insulations visit http://www.dysoninsulations.co.uk/
For further information about Samarind Bespoke Software Development, please contact us