RailsFactory

Please describe your company and your position there.

efore reading a review I always try to determine where the person giving the review is qualified to do so. I am including my history relating to having propriety applications created which I believe qualifies me to give Railsfactory a huge positive recommendation. The present company where I work is a motor car repair workshop. They have been in business in the same premises for over 30 years.

My position is office manager and personal assistant to the Director. I have been with the company for 20 years. Prior to this I was a director of a textile manufacturing company for 16 years and prior to that, for 26 years, a director of a chain of retail stores selling home appliances and TVs. In the 1960s it was my task to introduce computerisation of the firm. In those days the system was to engage a computer manufacturer and have them create the application for you.

We needed an application for our debtors only. We had very special and unusual requirements. Our responsibility was to describe our manual systems fully listing the number of line entries per month. The computer manufacturer’s programmers would then analyse this and quote an all in price for the software and hardware. It took over a year complete and debug.

It was during this process that I learned why so many propriety application installations failed. Time pressure was put on the person responsible for introduce the computer system to the firm by both the computer company and your own company management to install the system. The computer manufacturer’s attitude was “we are far enough into the creation where it can be introduced and we will debug it as we get along”.

Our management team “if the programmers are ready to launch why are you holding the installation back?” one had to be very strong to resist both pressures. Ultimately, some months later, when I ran through the whole programme multiple times without a hitch the system it was successfully launched. My next computerisation was in 1982 when I joined a textile manufacturing Company.

Two months prior the previous owner had purchased a computer and program from a computer manufacturer. It too was to function as debtors program only. One had to start the computer with magnetic card each time. The program had many bugs. I contacted the vendor company, they took the computer back and passed a full refund. We brought we our old clackty clack booking machine re-entered all entries which gave me time to reassess what was available.

Times had changed one was not forced to purchase from the computer manufacturers. Programmers where writing programs for specific industries and looking for clients. This time I was looking to buy a ready made standard debtors plus analysis application off the shelf I wrote a detailed analysis of our requirements which I sent out to various programing organisation.

My one major specification was their program had to fulfil all our requirements without modification. If during their demonstration I was told “The program cannot do this feature but we can modify it for you.” The demonstration would come to an immediate end. Many such demonstrations ended this way. Eventually I found such a program with which we had great success. Bear in mind that the computers we were using had a “Huge hard drive capacity of 20 megabytes.

The application which I ultimately chose fully lived up to my expectations. The textile factory was sold in 1988 I decided to move on. In the company wages program we used was a very good program. I had developed a relationship with their support team which was totally telephone based. Knowing that I was now free they asked me to join them to handle the support and onsite education for those customers whose issues they could satisfy over the phone by their support team.

This was a very satisfying job. Without expectation when I left each customer they expressed their grateful thanks. Payments were made on completion of the session. In 1999 this company was sold. I was invited to join a company which sold computer education manuals to training organisations. My task was to create a market within the state government, universities, big business and private training organisations for both offline and online uses.

I did this for five years and left when the company was sold. This too was a very satisfying job. I had at my disposal online education on any IT subject I chose. Here too my function was after sales training and support. This was prior to zoom, Team viewer or the benefits of any online face to face application . In 1999 I joined Gil Auto. Gil at that stage was using a manual system for his operation. I investigated the readymade market and could not find a satisfactory application that could satisfy our requirements.

We engaged a small programming firm to create a standalone a single off line application. This served us well but as the business had grown we needed a new program to enhance our back office productivity. About six years ago we were approached the largest firm of programmers in Australia who specialised in the motor industry.

They gave us an estimate of the cost for the modification of their program to our requirements. This time I really thought that they would be able to do this. A year later they refunded our deposit admitting defeat.

For what projects/services did your company hire RailsFactory, and what were your goals?

The project for which we engaged Railsfactory was to create a multi user online application to have all the functionality of our existing desktop offline application with many, many more added features in our wish list

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were recommended to Railsfactory by a firm in the jewelry insurance business. Railsfactory had been a service provider for them for some years and still is currently.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We provided Railsfactory with a copy of our offline application, and the current .mdb files and a wish list. Railsfactory were to provide us with a multi user online solution plus the list of all the items on our wish list.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

All team members, I think about six, were present at every meeting. There was no having to wait for answers because of somebody’s absent. At the end of each meeting the team leader confirmed their notes as to what was to be completed for the next meeting and a date set for that meeting. Their knowledge and usage of the English language was very impressive, at no stage did we need to correct any spelling in the hard coded text.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

There are three areas which benefited from the introduction of the application Workshop about 12% Back office about 15% Sales and marketing a massive 25% Workshop and back office what we anticipated Marketing and sales a delightful surprise

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We really had no idea of all the possibilities and benefits that the internet and modern programming could offer us. Had Railsfactory just given us what we asked for we would have been satisfied. All the way through the project they brought to our attention benefits that we did not know were possible. These extra enhancements have been greatly appreciated.

On two occasions in the third of fourth sprint we realised that an added feature would be nice to have only to discover that they had provided that as they thought we would need it at some future date. For the difficult requests we made, they in every case, found an efficient answer. In one case we required one particular field to have a circular updating system. Their resulting workaround was very impressive. The information of this feature has enabled us to markedly increase our sales.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The project was divided into a number of sprints which were to be signed off by us one at a time. At all stages we knew where we were and could see and feel the progress that was being made. We for our part were constantly testing and retesting all achievements looking for glitches and anomalies Previously all programmers we have worked with have been in our time zone.

The customer’s input is vital at all stages of the project. This had resulted in our losing many hours out of our day being dedicated to the previous programmers attempts. Railsfactory being in a different was a distinct advantage as meeting could be held after we closed for a few hours at a time a couple of times a weeks. All team members, I think about six, were present at every meeting.

There was no having to wait for answers because of somebody’s absent. At the end of each meeting the team leader confirmed their notes as to what was to be completed for the next meeting and a date set for that meeting. Their knowledge and usage of the English language was very impressive, at no stage did we need to correct any spelling in the hard coded text.

We signed off the final sprint having tested and trying create errors which we could not find we went live without running the old system in parallel. We have had no glitches from the application. A vital feature! Railsfactory provided us the ability, without any coding knowledge on our part, to add new information to all the dropdown fields. This is an outstanding feature. It has future proofed the application.

It is as up-to-date today as it was on the day we went live. Their after-sales service was exceptional. On two occasions we had a problem with our internet provider. We contacted Railsfactory they in turn contacted our provider on our behalf and we were up and running within a few hours. Once again thank you Railsfactory.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Absolutely no issues that i can remember