Case Study

Key Challenges

With the new gas extraction technologies that have emerged over the past few years, Neuco is experiencing breakneck growth. In their original business process, the foreman in the field filled out a 2-sided paper form detailing what crew did that day.

That got sent in to the main office where someone typed it into a several spreadsheets. Once that was deciphered and refined, a process that only 2 or 3 key people could do, another person then reentered the data into the accounting system so it could be billed. It took them weeks to prepare an invoice after a project completed.

The process was time consuming, very error prone, and management had a difficult time knowing what was going on in any given project.

Valuable data was spread across multiple spreadsheets making any type of reporting either impossible or very cumbersome at best.

Using Excel as a Database

Spreadsheets are great tools. They allow us to put together columns of numbers with labels, do summations, complex calculations, data analysis and forecasting. They can even produce pretty graphs! But what they’re not good at is storing data, managing the relationships between that data and getting critical business intelligence to the right person in the organization.

A trend we see is that creative corporate employees cobble together IT solutions based on tools they are familiar with such as Excel, Word and Access. Why? If you don’t have a dedicated IT department people will use tools they are familiar with to solve their data collection problems. Left to their own devices, creative non-IT employees *will* create a solution, albeit a not so well designed solution.

These solutions are adequate in the beginning when there’s very little data and they solve an immediate problem. But over time, as the amount of data grows and the differing needs of the organization grow, these homegrown solutions no longer meet the needs of the organization as a whole. They become increasingly difficult to work with and become downright unwieldy. At some point in time they become a hindrance to the growth of the organization. And this is exactly what happened at Neuco. Something had to change.

Results & Benefits

• Foremen can enter data in the field and record activities as they happened
• Data validation was applied to all data entry to prevent errors
• The business rules are applied during data entry to ensure the correct questions were asked and the correct calculations were applied
• Management now has the flexibility to generate up-to-the-minute reports showing exactly what was going on in every project
• Reporting can aggregate data across projects, something that was never possible before with the spreadsheets
• Billing is able to be done immediately after a project completion instead of waiting weeks to tabulate the work.

In summary, the system allows Neuco to streamline their operations and gives management the business intelligence they need to make informed decisions about how to best manage their business. In a nutshell, it gives Neuco a real strategic, competitive edge.

Keene Systems

We are a 29 year old software consulting firm. We partner with our clients to provide web application solutions that solve complex business problems. Our software transforms your day to day decisions into click of a button, data driven answers. Our team consists of a hard to come by mix: geeks with solid business experience plus effective communication skills.

Our proven process involves getting to know not just your IT needs; we take a holistic approach to software development and build technology solutions around your business goals. From inception, through architectural design, development, deployment and maintenance, we provide services at every step in the process.

Give us a ring, we'll kick around some ideas and show you what's possible. We can custom tailor a solution that perfectly meets your need and your budget.