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Hornady Manufacturing was founded in 1949 by Joyce Hornady. Like many successful companies, Hornady was born out of one man's vision of a better product for his own use. Joyce Hornady was an ardent shooter and needed a steady supply of good, accurate bullets. For almost 60 years Hornady Manufacturing has been manufacturing quality bullets and ammunition and has grown into the world's largest independent producer of bullets. Their slogan, "Accurate. Deadly. Dependable", is evidenced by their quality products.
As Hornady grew so did their sales force, and along with it, increasing demands for accurate and dependable sales analysis information for management, territory representatives and sales reps. Sales reports were previously sent out via mail on a monthly basis. Then, Hornady implemented Catapult in 2004, using it to distribute reports via email at month end. Their next step was to move up to distributing weekly sales summaries. This helped address their need for more current information, but still didn't provide real time reporting and graphing accessible via the web.
James Messing, Special Projects Manager for Hornady, was tasked with finding the right tools to build an application that would provide real time access to sales information via the browser. As James told us, "We were looking for a more robust query tool to replace Query 400. Being able to use conditional statements was a big thing, and graphs to make nice-looking reports. We had seen Clover before and really liked it, so our hearts were set on it." After evaluating Clover, James also installed the Nexus Portal to provide a single, secure point of entry for Hornady personnel to access the Clover programs.
Figure: Open orders by Item and Date (Click to enlarge image and see others.)
After evaluating the products, James decided to contract the services of the BCD Professional Services group to assist him with the project. He sketched out the application, consisting of numerous graphs and drill-down reports and provided the specs along with file layouts to Kevin Cronin, Director of the Professional Services team. Kevin observed that "Jim did a nice job sketching out the programs they needed. We received this initial spec as a spread sheet along with a description and flow of the application and specs for summary files they intended to use."
After reviewing the specs and discussing the project with Jim, the BCD Professional Services group was able to provide an accurate estimate for the development.
Development proceeded on-time and on budget, with the actual time for project work coming in within 5 hours of the total estimated hours and well below the high end of the development estimate. In an unsolicited email, James Messing added "Just a note, as our initial project draws to a close, that I am more than pleased with the work Colin (Dams) has done for us. He did one heck of a job and the output looks great. We are closing things up and I have put this out to the salesmen. They are very pleased and excited."
After the new system had been implemented, James highlighted the following advantages of the new system:
- The first advantage is current data in the hands of our salesmen.
- Secondly, because the information is now available on the web there has been a reduction in phone calls requesting the latest data .
- And finally, when Hornady's sales people walk into the customer's store, their current grasp of the particular customer's situation improves customer confidence in them.
After we completed the project, we asked James to comment on his experience dealing with the BCD Technical Support and Professional Services teams. He observed that "working with the gentlemen at BCD is a treat. The support personnel bend over backwards to help with a question or solve a problem. All support staff are knowledge and courteous.... Colin took the design I laid out and made it real. The level of cooperation and working together was never a problem. He completed the work in a shorter time then expected and the documentation of the work done is detailed and understandable. The billing on the project was also top notch. I like, when involved in a project like this, to see where the money is going. The detailed billing left no questions, making them easy to approve and forward on for paying. There was never a question or concern."
For further information about how this application was developed or for details on our consulting services, please contact Kevin Cronin.
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