Case Study

Developer/Location:

Ronald Matsuo Toya, a Pendragon Solution Provider

Honolulu, HI

Overview:

A major distributor of exclusive beauty salon supplies in Honolulu had implemented Yes! I Can Run My Business™ accounting, sales, ordering and banking applications.  They wanted to further automate their semi-annual inventory control functions in order to increase the accuracy of their report data and reduce the cost of counting physical inventory.

Ronald Matsuo Toya, an independent software consultant, chose the Pendragon Forms platform to create cost-effective inventory applications for handheld computers.  Since the accounting data was already stored in MS Access databases, mapping the forms to the existing data tables significantly reduced the cost of developing the mobile solution.  

The forms were deployed to Handspring Visor handhelds equipped with Symbol CSM-150 bar code scanner modules.  During each inventory, the handhelds are used to quickly scan items and capture physical counts.  After synchronization, a discrepancy report is automatically generated.  Discrepancies are verified, adjustments are scanned into the handheld and synchronized to the inventory database.

Before Pendragon Forms:

Before using for inventory data collection, physical inventory was tallied on paper. Items in the shipping/receiving, warehouse and retail areas were manually counted and entered onto paper forms.  Counts were compared to on-hand quantities, and adjustment transactions were made to the inventory.

Benefits:

• Reduced time required to conduct each inventory by 8-12 hours

• Reduced the number of people required for each inventory by 50%, and correspondingly lowered personnel overtime costs

• Integrated physical inventory data with accounting databases

• PDA's are also used to manage field sales representatives' appointment and contact information and in the future will be used to capture sales order information during onsite sales calls.