It represented an exciting challenge for OFCDesk to integrate new technologies such as the internet and the database synchronization with a central database. From sales, financial and industrial system to 3D CAD, every single system data and even its interface colors should be parameterized through the database. Giroflex’ score business is based on a well-distributed dealer grid in South America and to keep them up-to-date was the major goal.
Versatility’s the drive
It was 1999 and Brazilian companies had just adopted the Internet broadband as a business tool. IT personnel started redesigning corporate systems to better integrate dealers and representatives.
When OFCDesk started getting grips with the Giroflex project, Mr. Amilcar Costa, Giroflex’s CIO, said: “You’re the second company trying to solve this problem, so credibility is a crucial issue on this project; you cannot make mistakes”. We started by analyzing their technologies and improvement possibilities in order to develop state-of-the-art technologies, putting lots of emphasis on risks reduction.
Tech adapts to high demands
We sketched an objective plan: to centralize all corporate information into a single database server. The AutoCAD system should read and build 2D or 3D products in any combination and any finishes and fabrics available – in real time.
SFA software should read AutoCAD projects and print quotes automatically – with 3D product images. It should also run whether connected or not to the network, locally or via Internet, at any time and place. That was pretty ambitious at that time.
Millions of part-numbers
The major drawback in the office furniture industry is the variety of part combinations, colors, finishes and other million products possibilities. It is virtually impossible to create a unique drawing for each product or even a human-readable part-number system. Everything must be created from scratch and then managed through system interfaces.
“Users have to describe what they want, and the system has to transform that request into database queries and return part-numbers, images, quotes, and everything else”, said Mr. Mauricio Ritzmann, OFCDesk’s Chief Software Architect. “We at OFCDesk know a conventional approach doesn’t work for all situations”.
Creating recipes for products
In spite of the million products combinations, Giroflex produces limited part numbers: about 5,000 of them, which combined generate all basic products lines. A specialized company, using 3D scanners, generated a 3D version of each part.
OFCDesk created a program called DATCreator to integrate each product with the users, writing a sort of recipe into a database, describing how to build that product in either 2D or 3D. This solution still is running for every new product until today. After a while, OFCDesk added to the corporate database a thorough cookbook of all products, and moved to the next step.
Software that knows how to cook
OFCDesk selected AutoCAD as the CAD platform because it is robust and has an object-oriented API called ObjecARX. In 6 months, with technical support by Autodesk members, the first release of GiroCAD was launched. Every user, including dealers and architects started creating projects with the 2D/3D drawing capabilities designed for Giroflex.
It works like this: a user selects the desired part-number, GiroCAD consults the database to “read” the product’s recipe; then it makes an AutoCAD block of it and shows the user a 3D image of the selected product. “With GiroCAD, you’ll have any Giroflex product, in real-time, at your own AutoCAD cursor”, said Mr. Ritzmann, referring to the software performance, written in C++. In no time, 2,000+ users adopted GiroCAD as their AutoCAD plug-in.
Business Information
Giroflex knows how many projects they do per day and how many of them generate proposals transformed into orders. Considering that the time-line between project and order can take more than 6 months, Giroflex managers can accurately predict the company’s income based exclusively on project numbers.
Sales Force Automation (SFA)
OFCDesk also created a SFA software to read the information generated from GiroCAD users. This information contains product specification such as fabric, colors, finishes and accessories. The SFA system prints or e-mails a neatly organized document, with all the necessary information to the customer, merging data coming from AutoCAD with commercial details like the price list and the payment conditions used, automatically including images of every product.
Systems maintenance
The key factor for its success is the system reliability. To ensure that, all the systems work connected to a database. The database is updated through a replication technology, that is, wherever you are you can get you system updated via Internet 24/7 and better yet, you can do whatever you have to off-line; no networking required.
As you can imagine, being a Giroflex salesperson has become a pleasure. You receive a notebook equipped with breathtaking software designed to empower you to make a show for your clients. In the end, all this stuff returns in sales and customer satisfaction.
Maintaining a consistent output
The goal was accomplished and until today we keep improving Giroflex’s system and fine-tuning it to reduce costs. After the Giroflex’s project, OFCDesk was considered a big player in developing software technology for architectural and related companies.
Keeping competitors behind
Giroflex and OFCDesk know how hard it is to achieve results this magnitude in IT. It takes time, investments, there are risks involved and it depends a lot on having people embrace the cause.
In order to keep competitors far behind, Giroflex and OFCDesk have been working together in a successful partnership to develop and evolve technologies, to improve results and business.
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