Northern Lights Technology Development

BACKGROUND

What does your business do and what is your role at your company?

I am the Vice President, responsible for supervision and management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What is the main reason you hired the service provider?

The competition in the hotel industry is getting tougher. We hoped to develop the hotel management system, create a new operation and management mode in order to improve work efficiency and hotel business performance, and better meet the needs of all aspects.

The hotel management system can easily handle the hotel's businesses such as  check-in, check-out, reservation, etc. meet the needs of hotel staff and managers, and reduce the dependence on labor with the system.

SOLUTION

How exactly did the service provider help your company? 

Northern Lights participated in the demand analysis, solution formulation, project development and implementation, system operation training, etc. of the hotel management system.

Our cooperation process was as follows:

1. Communicated with us on the needs, conducted all-round and multi-angle analysis through questionnaire, prototype display and logic processing display, and established the needs analysis book in the form of text record.

2. Formulated a plan, we jointly formulated an operable project plan based on the clear needs in the early stage, the start stage of the project, the implementation time agreement, the project cost limit, etc.

3. Project implementation stage: communicated with us in time to make us fully understand each section of the project.

4. End stage: this stage is mainly to hand over the project results and deliver the system to our maintenance personnel to help us achieve our business goals.

From the service provider’s company, what is the team composition?

The team included project manager, development manager, R & D engineer, test engineer and front-end UI.

• The project manager was responsible for conducting the communication, demand research, project document management and project schedule management with us.
• The development manager was responsible for the implementation of the development, leading the developers and formulating the development schedule.
• The development engineer was responsible for the implementation of development tasks.
• The test engineer was responsible for system deployment and installation, data acquisition and input, as well as system test.
• The front-end UI was responsible for the overall design of human-computer interaction, operation logic and interface aesthetics of the software.

Where did you find the vendor? 

We found Northern Lights through online research.

When we decided to build a hotel management system, we evaluated many software service providers. The qualification of Northern Lights met our needs. Moreover, we attached great importance to operation stability and data security. Northern Lights has performed very well in this regard.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project was completed in December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly used the tools such as email, telephone, WeChat, face-to-face, etc. for communication.

They communicated with us regularly to let us know the project's progress in time and further communicated the unclear details. If there was any deviation between the project and the expectation, Northern Lights would took the initiative to communicate with us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Northern Lights has a professional talent team. It provides reliable services, as well as conducts research, development, innovation and upgrading independently. Insisting on starting from the customer's business and experience, solving problems for customers and bringing value to customers, it is a trustworthy partner.

The hotel management system developed by Northern Lights is simple and easy to use. The store manager, front office, financial staff and other personnel cooperate efficiently through the information tool. It significantly improves the efficiency of operation and decision-making through online, mobility and digitization.
 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No

BACKGROUND

What does your business do and what is your role at your company?

We move the world! What does that mean? Countless conveyor belts, bottling plants, gravel plants, your luggage at the airport and much more would stand still without our motors, gear units, gearmotors, corresponding automation technology and range of services. Over 16,000 employees worldwide keep you in motion.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What is the main reason you hired the service provider?

The financial personnel of the company would receive the PDF bill information sent by our clients every day and then imported some information of the bill into excel. These works involve outlook, PDF, Excel and other platforms.

And it requires a large number of cross system operations and data processing. We hope to use the software robot to carry out this part of data processing work, instead of the previous manual operation.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Northern Lights provides requirements planning, design and development, test deployment, support and maintenance of RPA software robot. The service provider combed the business process together with our business personnel and confirmed the specific details of the process.

Besides, it customized RPA software process suitable for our company's needs. After the software online, the operation and maintenance team would support us to solve the problems we encountered.

From the service provider’s company, what is the team composition?

There are development engineers and business consultants in the service team. The business consultants communicated with us to sort out business processes and requirements, and the development engineers were responsible for the development and deployment of RPA software.

How did you come to work with the vendor? 

We found the Northern Lights Technology through our peoples' recommendation. As an IT service provider for many years, Northern Lights Technology had rich experience and accumulation in project development, winning the trust of many customers.

Is the project/partnership still ongoing or has it ended? If it ended, when did it end?

The project had been completed in March, 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

We always had a frank and great communication. We communicated with each other through face-to-face communication, Email, telephone, WeChat and other tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In the process of the project, Northern Lights Technology provided us with professional technical guidance and in-depth business chain analysis. Besides, it customized RPA process software according to our specific conditions.

Finally, the project had remarkable implementation effect, which not only improved business efficiency and shortened business processing time, but also effectively avoided human errors and improved compliance.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No

BACKGROUND

What does your business do and what is your role at your company?

We are a fully licensed class A international freight forwarder and NVOCC. As a member of IATA and IGLN (Inter-Global Logistics Network) of WCA Family of Logistic Networks, our company has an extensive network covering majority of the cities in the world.

We provide a wide range of services including international air freight, ocean freight, multi-modal shipping and transportation, domestic transportation, warehousing, customs clearance and cargo insurance as well.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What is the main reason you hired the service provider?

At present, there were a lot of work should be depended on the manual operation of data clerks in terms of data interaction, especially in the warehouse, transportation and other links of freight enterprises, which is time-consuming and laborious.

We hope to carry out digital transformation and upgrading as well as hand over this time-consuming and highly repetitive work to RPA robot to improve work efficiency and avoid manual operation errors such as data entry errors. Northern Lights Technology has many years of development experience with a good reputation in the industry.

SOLUTION

How exactly did the service provider help your company? 

Northern Lights Technology had launched RPA software robot for us.

Process: The service provider sorted out and analyzed our existing business processes to find the process suitable for automation. It prepared requirements documents to engage in the design, development and testing of the RPA software.

Besides, it provided corresponding operation and maintenance team so that the robot could maintain normal operation after it lanuched.

From the service provider’s company, what is the team composition? 

The project manager divided the work scope and tracked the task progress. The process leader, architecture development and testing personnel were responsible for the design, development and testing of RPA.

How did you come to work with the vendor? 

We found Northern Lights Technology through online search.

Northern Lights Technology had rich experience, deep customization ability and stable delivery ability, which could provide safe, reliable, efficient, adaptive and cooperative robot process automation solutions.

What is the status of this engagement? 

The project was successfully completed in July, 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

Northern Lights Technology actively communicated with us in the cooperation process. We had work communications with each other through face-to-face communication, Email, telephone, WeChat and other tools.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The service provider invited the specific business handling staff to engage in the development process of RPA to clarify the business purpose and processing mode of each step and save communication time from design to development.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is a national high-tech enterprise in the field of intelligent networked vehicles. It is positioned in the advanced driving assistance system (ADAS) and chassis by wire control, L4 level automatic driving solution and military-civilian integration application business. It has established the full technology chain architecture of "perception, decision-making, control, networking", and has outstanding ADAS core software and hardware development, chassis control technology research & development and system integration capabilities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with the vendor?

The production site management was chaotic, the materials were placed irregularly, and the raw materials, materials or finished products in the production process were overstocked in the warehouse. The unqualified products produced due to various misoperations leaded to equipment damage and safety accidents from time to time. We hoped to realize the digital and transparent management of the production workshop through the implementation of MES system, and finally realize the whole process traceability of product production process and quality.

Because the company has relevant experience in intelligent manufacturing and automobile production, the reputation of software development for many years are very good. The developed development plan meets our needs, and the price is more appropriate.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

• Conducted demand research, sorted out and optimized business processes, and clarified the functional module schemes of MES system.
• Carried out customized development and formulated detailed design and development scheme. Customized development for each module function.
• The system was deployed online to cooperate with us in data migration and system verification.
• Conducted user training for employees according to different roles and business types.
• Tested run to ensure the normal and stable operation of the system.

From the service provider’s company, what is the team composition? 

The team that the company provided services for us had a specialized project manager and technical director to follow up the project. From the early needs to the development work, there were always specialized people to connect with us. After the project, there was after-sales specialist followed up the use of the system.

How did you come to work with the vendor? 

We learned about the company through friend's introduction. After comparing several service providers, we finally chose the company. From each step of the project development process, we knew that the company was a very professional team.

What is the status of this engagement?

From the early needs to the development work, specialized personnel always kept in touch with us, and a clear list of requirements was made for this project. From the project demand communication to the function development, we are very satisfied with the whole process. The service provider is very serious and careful. They made sure to meet our requirements as accurately as possible and they exceeded our expectations. The project is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

The service provider actively communicated with us during the implementation period of the project, and it had specialized product manager and technical director to follow up the project, and the service provider would communicate with us about the project development progress timely and answered all our questions. We communicated mainly through offline meetings, WeChat, e-mail, telephone, etc.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The service provider is a very professional company. It completed the work with quality and quantity in a short time without delaying the construction period and completed the work quickly. It also provided a lot of good suggestions in the development process. We hope to cooperate with the service provider again in the future.

BACKGROUND

What does your business do and what is your role at your company?

Import and Export Trade and Storage; International Trade & Simple Processing; Maritime International Freight Forwarding Agent; Air International Freight Forwarding Agent.

I serve as Department Manager and responsible for warehouse management.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with the vendor? What is the main reason you hired the service provider?

The chaotic warehouse management often causes frequent mistakes in inventory verification. Northern Lights Technology has high-quality implementation experience and relevant industry experience in WMS with a good reputation and good service attitude.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
 

The service provider engaged in sorting out requirements. The company provided a complete set of solutions according to our actual situation and provided more reliable services through the cloud platform; SaaS, agile development, artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance and big data real-time analysis were used in the process; Providing Scheme → Development & Implementation → Testing & Online → Operation & Maintenance.

From the service provider’s company, what is the team composition? 

The system was completed by a team consisted of 5 personnel:

• 1 Project Manager
• 1 Requirements Analyst
• 3 Development Programmers

In the later stage, a test team intervened in the test work.

How did you come to work with the vendor?

We learned about the company through our friend's recommendation. The service provider gave a reasonable scheme to make the system run well.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project went well and we would cooperate if we have the opportunity in the future. At present, though the project has been completed, the company provides us with daily server operation and maintenance services. They will fix the bug in the system application with a good service quality.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

The service provider had a timely communication with us and solved problems quickly. We communicated with each other through We-Chat, telephone, door-to-door visit and video conference, etc. Communication frequency: 2-3 times a week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They had a perfect service and provided a high-quality software system. Besides, the company cared about our use felling in the use of the system and sent questionnaires to learn about the problems found by our various departments and personnel in the using process to constantly improve the popularity of the system.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company was founded in 1996 and restructured into a company limited by shares with the approval of the State Economic and Trade Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in October 2000. Relying on the strong talent advantages and leading scientific research achievements of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, we have been taking active actions in the forefront of China's industry information construction for more than 20 years. Besides, it is a large professional high-tech enterprise engaged in computer software R & D, application and service.    

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with the vendor?

To solve the problems of factory equipment networking, data collection, system cloud, etc. and provide convenience for the development of work informatization.

The reason we choose this service provider is because they have a strong team of engineers and technical team, and insist on continuous technology R & D. Besides, they also have very rich and custom development experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?
The service provider provides technology development services for our company.

We adopt the native app development, which is fully customized according to the needs of our company. Each function is completed by professional technical personnel in the way of handwritten code. The app is equipped with strong functions in terms of compatibility and access with a high quality.

Cooperation process:

• Demand research
• product design
• demand determination
• interface interaction design and technical design
• review
• project development
• testing and fixing bug
• online
• performance tuning
• version update.

What is the team composition?

To complete the business of our company, the team provided by the service provider is composed of project manager, program developer, background data designer, UI designer, tester, etc.

The project manager is mainly responsible for communicating with our company and understanding the development needs, etc.

The background and database designers design the database according to the needs to build the background management framework;

The UI designers are proficient in art design and interaction design to establish interaction models and interaction specifications.

How did you come to work with the vendor?

We found the service provider through the recommendation of our colleagues.

The outstanding points of the service provider are that they have accumulated years of technology and experience and can quickly understand our problems, and help us sort out our needs. They always try their best to meet our needs.

What is the status of this engagement?

Very success. The project has been successfully completed and our company still has a good cooperative relationship with the software service provider.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did the vendor perform from a project management standpoint?

The service provider communicates with our company through offline meetings, telephone, e-mail, etc. We maintain close contact with each other to solve problems in time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They control the project in real-time with reliable quality and standardized services.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No