In our last post, we discussed Pendant’s use of a software application we developed called PRO17.  We use PRO17 to more create BOMs, spare parts list, FLA calculations, device labels, etc.  Eventually we will use it to create our control drawings.

This post is about another application Pendant developed that helps us manage our business. Think of it as an in-house ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software. We built it with software development skills we acquired in creating  Revolution Street WXS. We call it Project X (I guess we have an affinity for the letter “X” – sort of Muskian of us I guess).

What is it?

We needed a software tool that would  allow us to manage all aspects of our business more efficiently.  We could have pieced together multiple third party apps. Another option was to spend exorbitant sums on an ERP that would take forever to implement. In the end, we decided to build it ourselves. The result is a custom software application that is now an integral part of how we do business.

How do we use it?

In ProjectX, we manage parts of all these functions:

• Sales and Marketing – including estimates, proposals, contacts, and order acknowledgments
• Project Management – including budgets, schedules, profitability,  RFIs, scope change orders, submittal of invoices to finance, and the pre-project and post-project meetings we call the 3PB and 3pD
• Procurement – including our catalog, procurement requests, purchase orders
• Shipping and Receiving – including logging of received shipments, packing slips, bills of lading, inventory, and UL label logging
• QA/QC – status of panel tests, customer surveys, lessons learned, suggestions for changes to standards, and asset management
• Support services – including support contract maintenance, support tickets, remote access details by customer, support-related invoice creation and tracking, and ticket reports
• Leadership – including KPIs and the leadership scorecard
• HR – including emergency contact forms, quarterly review records, personnel data, accident investigations, offer letters, hiring documents, and time tracking sheets
• File share – to make sharing large files easy
• Site admin– settings for all areas of ProjectX, including the capability to build standard assemblies used in cost estimating
• Logs – logging communications to and from the system, and the file share log

Why does this software matter to you?

There are several reasons we’re sharing this with you today.  You benefit without even knowing, in the following ways as well as others:

• Information that matters in the execution of your project is well-organized and easily accessible.
• Standards in cost estimating mean you will get an estimate that’s based on tried and true control strategies. (side note:  I wasn’t crazy about “tried and true” so I went to synonym.com for alternatives. I did get some synonyms with which I wasn’t happy. But I did get a list of words that rhyme with “tried and true”, like kangaroo, hullabaloo, timbuktu, and my favorite, yabbadabbadoo.  If only I could figure out a way to use yabbadabbadoo!)
• Pendant records all support tickets and updates them regularly.  We can also give you custom support ticket reports to help you troubleshoot your most prevalent issues.
• We keep a record of what we learn from each project we do.  The more we learn from experience, the better we are at getting you to a high return on investment, faster.
• Estimates are tied to our catalog pricing, which is regularly updated by procurement. Long delays in executing an order can lead to the necessity to update pricing. An order that is executed quickly will be based on accurate recent costs.
• Our proposal process has a portal through which you may access and proposals we have submitted to you.  It also allows you to extract portions of our proposal for use in your own proposals to clients.

I did an informal poll of our team, and everyone had something different for which they rely heavily on ProjectX.  The bottom line is that everybody on the team believes that ProjectX makes us more efficient, accurate, responsive.  In short, it just makes us better at what we do. And that really matters to you.

I like efficiency and responsiveness.