The Client

The client is a $1 Billion global precision molder, provides its world-class services to a variety of successful markets that need precision plastics molding, including electronics, telecommunications, packaging, healthcare, automotive, industrial and contract manufacturing.

The Challenge

Client lacked a comprehensive central repository system for information and status regarding customer RFQs and resulting quotations. Further complicating this was the fact that there were numerous formats and procedures used to produce customer quotations, as well as a backlog of Web-based development work their internal team could not tend to. Client's CIO identified the opportunity to outsource the development work as a way of freeing up his internal staff to focus on more high-valued, full scaled development work. Basically they were looking to be able to take on more IT work without adding a lot of costs. One of the major issues the client had predicted surfaced right away-figuring out how to hand off work from client to Objectiva. The CIO knew his staff had to be much more precise with their requirement definitions and technical specifications. The more rigorous processes of requirements-gathering documentation seemed to do the trick. The workers in China-totally focused on a single project-were completing tasks three times faster than could his internal staffers, who might get distracted by other business needs. Not only was he saving money on these projects, he was saving time. On the other hand, the client feared that business users and the internal IT staff would have trouble keeping pace with the Beijing-based workers.

The Solution

As a CMMi Level 5 certified outsourcing provider, Objectiva understands the importance of strong communication with onshore project management, onsite technical directors, and documentation and decision checkpoints. Client had to become more efficient at the front end of the development processes of technical design-specifically, collecting requirements from users more quickly. The CIO was able to convince the business users that they needed to spend more time meeting in the initial phases of the process-every day, rather than every other, and getting back very quickly to IT on what they thought or needed. After fully documenting the client's requirements, Objectiva's team developed an application with a workflow component as well as linkage to document repository using Metadata situated on a SharePoint Portal server. The application would initiate a transaction that could be subdivided and sent to multiple plants worldwide for costing and quotation information. A workflow component was added to allow users to track the RFQ throughout the transaction lifecycle and an interface was developed between the application and a document repository that allowed all application users to upload all documents associated with a RFQ.

Technologies Used:

• Languages: ASP.NET, VB.NET, HTML, JavaScript and XML
• Operating Systems: NT/2000, Solaris, OS390, Linux and AIX
• Application Servers: Microsoft IIS v6.0, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Crystal Reports v8.0
• Platform: Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003
• MSDE/SQL Server 2000
• Internet Information Server (IIS)