Case-Study: E-Procurement application (EPROC)

Client

The client is University of Liverpool, large and very old institution famous for its scientific researches.

Background

Having significant business experience in e-commerce domain, the client jointly with partner company decided to create own ASP solution which will provide higher level of service automation and integration. There was already existing system which needed to be reworked, since a lot of functions were obsolete, not friendly for end user or missed. The target of this project was to perform business analysis of existing system, review end-users wishes and to develop required solution, which will substitute the existing system. Also, a lot of additional functionality is planned for project continuation (like PDA interface, Project management system).

Solution

The key aspects in developing E-Procurement solution are strong business analysis, efficient requirements management and technical expertise. 2 persons from Qulix have spent almost a month onsite in UK to collect and adjust requirements, analyze business flows and remove disadvantages of previous functionality. This effort was done in addition to offsite analysis work, performed by a group of 2 people via MSN and phone. The consulting group of the business project has had brilliant ideas and extensive experience in e-procurement and supply chain management projects. Though they haven't had the clear requirements for the system, and at this point Qulix's experience in technical and business analysis aspects has been a great benefit for the customer. During our collaboration we have elaborated the clear and structured requirements, which have helped us to build cost-effective, secure, user-friendly solution to suit all needs of the company employees as well as their customers.

Initially the solution was targeted for Construction vertical, but later it was decided to create suitable solution for Aerospace and Food verticals keeping the system as common as possible, but tailoring different modules to the needs of specific vertical.

Key features

The system is purposed for 3 types of users - buyers, sellers and installers. Each user type has its own functional modules and role in business workflow.

• Administration of users, rights, permissions, groups etc.
• Project based approach
• Workflow based business cycle
• Processing of Supply Summary, Requisitions, Purchase Orders, Delivery notes, Invoices and Payments
• VAT codes
• Catalogue management and import
• Reporting
• Modifiable Approval rules and procedures
• Personal tasks management and reminders
• Integration with Payment systems
• Integration with ERP systems (RedThorn, SAP)

Technical overview

The EPROC solution is a typical 3-tier web application based on ASP.NET technology, IIS application server and Oracle 10g database server. Physically these servers could be installed both on one and separate servers.

For implementation purposes there has been developed special LLA (low level architecture) framework which provided such mechanisms as navigation between pages, caching, clustering, persistency, list form and edit form processing and so on.

Also, it was required to implement integration with third-party systems like RedThorn and SAP/R3. The idea was that end-users should use the ERP systems already installed in-house to provide initial data for EPROC system. The integration was performed via web service implementation and development of XML messaging mechanism. SSL protocol was used for security purposes.

Benefits for the customer

• Majority of business functionality flaws from old system were removed in new one
• Several new required features were added improving system usability and end-user satisfaction
• Performance was significantly improved
• Obsolete functionality and non-required integrations were removed and substituted by one consolidated solution
• Benefits of new high-end technologies instead of old PHP realization

Technologies and products used

Oracle 10g, IIS, ASP.NET, NET Security, Crystal Reports, IBM Rational ClearQuest, CVS, MS Project

Project workload

The project team comprised 9 people, and project duration was 4 months.

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