Shaun has written many custom applications for widely varying use cases. From applications geared toward internal customers to client-facing applications, all of them have been focused on improving processes.
PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATIVE SERVICES – LEGISLATOR BIOS MANAGER
Node.js/YAML
PLS provides information on Pennsylvania state legislators. This application allows clients to visit the PLS website and choose a legislator (or many legislators) to get a biographical profile of the legislator(s), which is displayed for the user as a PDF file that can be downloaded. This had not been available on the site in such a format in the past.
PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATIVE SERVICES – LEGISLATIVE DIRECTORY
Node.js/YAML
In the past, PLS had published an annual directory containing a wealth of information about the Pennsylvania state legislators, their committee assignments, their districts, and their staff. This directory had been built manually and took weeks to put together. Shaun built a Node.js app to collect the information from YAML files and coordinate the information into a PDF format that could be sent for publication. This application took the process completion time from weeks to seconds. It also allowed for quick response to changing requirements from the Sales team with minimal code changes.
IMAGETECH SYSTEMS – AIS INSURANCE POLICY PROCESSING
Kofax TotalAgility
AIS is an insurance broker and they wanted to be able to scan insurance policies of potential clients and automatically populate insurance forms so that they could provide a price quotation quickly. As every insurance company uses different policy formats, this application was customized to read the policies of ten different major insurers and also had the ability to acquire information from other insurers.
IMAGETECH SYSTEMS – PA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH HEAD INJURY PROGRAM
Nintex Forms and Workflow/Microsoft SharePoint
The PA DOH needed an application to capture the applicants and users of their head injury program. This application tracked users and the amounts spent to ensure that the total spent did not exceed the pre-defined limit.
IMAGETECH SYSTEMS – PA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH GRANT TRACKING
Nintex Forms and Workflow/Microsoft SharePoint
The PA DOH provides grants for different organizations and needed to be able to track those amounts and the associated paperwork. This application collected the information and organized it for easy reference.
IMAGETECH SYSTEMS – UNITED RENTALS FACILITY MANAGEMENT
Nintex Forms and Workflow/Microsoft SharePoint
United Rentals is an equipment rental company providing everything from hand tools to industrial cranes and has many locations throughout the United States and Canada. Their requirement was a system to collect and retain information about the locations, such as personnel, as well as to be able to bring inventory into their system.
HERSHA HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT – PURCHASING WORKFLOW
Nintex Workflow/Microsoft SharePoint
HHM provides shared services for hotels all over the United States, including accounting, IT and purchasing. This application allowed users to create a purchase request and have it filtered through the various levels of management based on location, acquiring approvals as it went through.
HERSHA HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT – PROPERTY SNAPSHOT
Visual Basic.NET/Microsoft SQL Server
HHM manages hotels across the United States and when Shaun began his employment, they did not have one unified system for tracking the information of all of their hotels. Shaun took this concern to upper management and had a solution. Using VB.NET, he developed an application that would track not only the vitals of the hotel such as name and address, but also the personnel, bank account information and IT systems used.
PYRAMID – SYNERGY
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Synergy was a replacement for the Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP system that Pyramid had been using. Integrating information using the other custom software listed below, Synergy did invoicing, accounts receivable and the other accounting functions that Pyramid used.
PYRAMID – ORDER TRACKING
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Before Shaun’s order tracking application, sales representatives would have to walk out to the factory floor and find the supervisor, who would then have to find the order and give an update on the status. With the order tracking application, machine operators scanned the progress of each order through each step of the process. The sales rep could then simply look at the order status screen to tell where any given order was at that time and give the customer updated information immediately.
PYRAMID – SCHEDULING AND TIME CLOCK
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Pyramid had several different steps in the manufacturing process and with the ISO9001 certification, users needed to be tracked according to their competence level. (See also the Competency Matrix below.) With this scheduling application, the supervisor making the job assignments would be able to see an employee’s competence in any particular job by grabbing the employees name and hovering over the job. If hovering showed that the employee was not deemed competent according to standards, the supervisor would either check their work more often or provide the required training.
The time clock had two screens: one was where the employees actually scanned in and out of their shift but the other was a display of who was scheduled for what job. That screen, which users checked to find out their work assignments, was also color-coded so that the employee knew their competence level and could request additional checks on their work or the required training.
Because this program ran constantly, it also had a function that would examine the records every day to determine how long it had been since a particular operator performed a certain step of the production process. If it had been a certain amount of time since they had done it last, their competence level dropped by one and they would require additional training.
PYRAMID – COMPETENCY MATRIX
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Pyramid’s ISO9001 certification required the company to track the competence level of machine operators. There were several different steps in the production process and many factory workers. The Competency Matrix displayed a list of all users and their competence with all steps of the production process. This is also the tool that the supervisors used to change the level of competence for a user who has received additional training.
PYRAMID – QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTION AND ANALYSIS
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Pyramid performed quality tests on every order manufactured. Pyramid is a manufacturer of polyurethane drive belts and these checks included size and tensile strength on a certain number of belts per order. The QA inspector would measure the size of the belt, both in cross-section (or thickness and width for flat belts) and length. This measurement would be entered into the QA program and a tolerance applied as appropriate for that particular order.
There were three levels of result: success, warning, and failure. If the belt fell into tolerance, the QA inspector moved on to the next belt until the requisite number of belts for that order had been tested. If there was a warning, a supervisor would have to be notified and if there was a failure, a member of top management would be notified. The same check applied to the tensile strength of the belt. The belt was broken with a gauge that would show ultimate tensile strength and, as with size, there were three levels with the same outcome.
The analysis portion of the program could extract the data in any way the user desired, such as length, cross-section, color, type of material, the piece(s) of machinery on which it was produced, and even the employee who completed each step of the production process. With this tool, management could look for trends such as a certain welder producing belts of decreasing tensile strength, allowing for preventative maintenance to be performed on that welder. They could also look to see if a particular operator was consistently getting warnings or failures on the length of their belts, indicating that the operator needed more training.
PYRAMID – SHIPPING CALCULATOR
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Pyramid uses both UPS and FedEx for shipping and because of their strict credit terms, sometimes customers are required to pay in advance. This means that the sales representative must be able to estimate the shipping cost so it can be added to the total before the check is sent. The shipping calculator was an interface where a user could enter a zip code, weight, and shipping method and receive a price it would cost to ship that particular package.
PYRAMID – PRICING PROGRAM
Visual Basic.NET/MySQL
Pyramid is a manufacturer of polyurethane drive belts. Each order is custom-made to specifications provided by the customer at the time of the order. There are a virtually unlimited number of combinations of cross-section, length, material, color and texture as cross-sections were available in .001″ increments and lengths were in 1/32″ increments, as well as a several materials and colors. As such, pricing of every line item of every order would be a tedious process by hand.
Pyramid had a pricing program in place when Shaun started but he was asked to rewrite it and improve on it. Not only did he replicate the pricing structure, but he eliminated a significant amount of code and added enhancements such as the ability to save quotes in a database for future reference and using color to draw attention to anything special about an order, such as a non-standard material.
Shaun’s version of the Pricing Program had a graphical user interface (instead of text-only in the original) and included other useful tools to help technical sales with size and weight calculations, as well as the ability to print out quotes and save them for future reference.