When I started at John Lewis of Hungerford, they had just implemented a token ring network, and were using WordPad to do all word processing and using fax for order processing. As they were moving the headquarters to a new location, I took the opportunity to change the IT infrastructure.
The biggest change was the implementation of an Automated Ordering System. Prior to this implementation, the staff at the showrooms after they designed the kitchen for a customer, would handwrite on a carbon-copy form the kitchen order. If a mistake was made, they would have to start over. This form was then faxed over to the head office, where the handwritten form was then entered manually into a new custom written application for ordering.
Seeing the waste in time and effort, and the mistakes that could be made, I wrote an application for the showroom sales staff that would allow them to enter the data into a database. Once the customer signed off on the quotation, the accepted quotation was then sent to the head office and entered into their ordering system.
Overtime, as new technologies arrived, notable the use of ADSL I created a virtual private network between 12 sales sites (including 2 in The Netherlands and 1 in Belgium). With that in place, and a centralised database – SQL Server 2000 with replication – to allow the sales staff to share quotes and work on a quote if they moved to a different showroom to provide coverage). By this stage I had migrated the ordering process was hand entering faxed copies of report, to producing emailed files which could be loaded directly into the ordering system. With a shared network, I could now insert the data directly into the ordering system.
Working with the production manager, I was then able to use this ordering system to directly produce CAD files for use by the CNC router, so that the product could start to be created within minutes.
When I started on the automation project, after a kitchen was designed, it often took a week for the quotation to be handwritten, and the order faxed over. It then took another day or two to entered into the ordering system, and another day for the kitchen to be started to be made.
At the end of the project, from the moment the quotation was entered, the kitchen could start to be made within 15-30 minutes, with no errors in ordering.