ERP Development – a case study

The ams.media experience

ams.media answered the call from our US-based client who hired us to develop their Enterprise Resource and Project Management system. This client was a large construction conglomerate, but the IT department is very down-to-earth. They knew they were overwhelmed, but also knew exactly the kind of system they needed to support the organisation’s leadership and field operations. We were told that the rapid growth of the company, and the increasing complexities of operations had outgrown the company’s two-person IT team who were struggling with a legacy set of loosely interconnected management systems that was patched across different departments and regions. In short, it was an  administrative monster, and the company’s IT staff were no longer able to maintain management tools that were unfit for the purpose. ams.media quickly responded to their extremely well crafted RFP and quickly got started on this exciting project.

The ams.media process is an agile one in which we work in close collaboration with our clients. And, this was the case with this ERP system. This construction company had an operational problem that needed automation, improvements in communication, better resource identification and engagement, and a system that could deliver support to managers in the most remote of locations, often without internet connectivity.  In this case, we benefited from an excellent design specification from the start which was based on construction planning experience developed over several decades. We were thrilled to develop such a robust system which included a communication module (that was designed to provide real time conditions on all their construction sites across 12 states), an image database, document/checklist repository, a resource and vendor management system,accounting and contract module, project management and gantt scheduler. And to tie the various resource and contract agreements together we integrated the Adobe e-sign solution for remote contract sign-offs .

We are very proud of this project as well as the effective partnership we formed with this client and we were pleased that the client quickly caught-on to the solutions were proposed including, the secure and infinitely scalable AWS cloud computing services. But perhaps what we’re most proud of, is the offline mobile application that was built in parallel with the ERP. This app provided a solution for construction and engineering works remote hinterland or underground tunnels. The offline solution meant construction engineers had the resource and project management tool at their fingertips, whether or not they had Internet connectivity. The company continues to administer the entire enterprise system smoothly with just two internal IT employees. This is a testament to the solid design and effective execution of this  complex enterprise system.