See our work

We hope that the following case studies on work that we have done for our clients will give you an indication of our expertise in a wide range of business sectors.

Please select any of the systems below to view the project details:

Order Processing - ERP
Property Management
Barcode Labelling

Stemcor is the largest independent steel trader in the world. They have truly become a complete end-to-end service provider in all aspects of steel supply - from finance right through to the final distribution. Their turnover exceeds £6billion, employing 1,400 people in a network of 70 offices in 40 countries across the globe.

Project Description:

Stemcor needed an order processing system to be able to cope with a large amount of mission critical data. This project shows that 4mation can be trusted to deliver a critical system to a blue-chip company. The system is currently being used in a large number of locations throughout the world from New York to Sydney.

Steel traders had to be able to purchase & sell stock through to the invoicing stage.
Accountants needed to keep a close eye on trading activities to make sure costs are kept under control.
Management needed a variety of reports to help them may key decisions - for example on the level of stock holding or amount of credit insurance required for a particular customer.
Due to the large user base, access to individual areas of the system was controlled by assigning user groups & permissions.
As the system is being used in numerous countries all reports including purchase, sales orders etc had to be capable of being printed in any given language.
There is also an interface to the SunSystems 5 accounting package allowing data to be exchanged between the 2 systems.
Data is also exchanged with numerous software systems used by 3rd party agents & suppliers that Stemcor use. This is carried out via XML EDI data transfer.

The complexity of the system is further enhanced as the global offices are targeting different markets. This means that there could be multiple types of business processes needed to go from purchase through to sales. The single system had to be capable of delivering this functionality.

This system is continuality being enhanced to provide additional functionality as the customer’s business grows and becomes more complex. This means that we have to pay particular attention to the database design, so that it allows for evolving functionality without compromising performance.

Screenshots:

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Technology Used:

Microsoft SQL Server, T-SQL, XML, Microsoft Visual Foxpro

Testimonial:

4mation have been developing Stemcor’s core ERP system for the last 10+ years. Over these years we have built up a great relationship. 4mation do not only develop code from specifications sent by Stemcor but also review and provide us with feedback as to other possibilities of how we can achieve our goals. This is really refreshing from a development company. In most cases Stemcor will only provide 4mation with a Business Specification and 4mation will in turn draft a technical specification and send this back to Stemcor for review before coding commences. 4mation were responsible for the development in upgrading our system from FoxPro 2.6 running on FoxPro tables to Visual FoxPro running on MS SQL Server. This was a massive project in 2001 which was a great success. Over the years Stemcor continued to enhance their ERP system with approximately 4 large releases each year which 4mation would be responsible for the technical design and development. 4mation are flexible and are always available to discuss something or assist us in troubleshooting relevant issues that may arise with the system. They are reactive and deliver on very short timescales. It has been a pleasure working with 4mation.

Kim Richards (Stemcor Holdings Limited)

Cooke Rudling are a Birmingham based Chartered Surveyors who provide a wide range of property services both locally and throughout the UK.

Project Description:

They had a “system” of sorts. It was developed in Microsoft Access by a freelance programmer. However the system contained numerous bugs that made it very difficult to use & data was constantly having to be re-entered. Furthermore as it was really designed properly, entering in data was not very intuitive.

Initially we were asked to fix these issues as a business priority. Whilst we managed to make the system usable it became clear that we were “sticking plasters on a leaky boat” – the time spent dealing with issues on an on-going basis was wasted. It was then decided that a new system, designed from the ground up which addressed the current & anticipated needs of Cooke Rudling would be the best way forward.

The new system had to allow them to manage their properties, valuations and book appointments via the internet as this would allow for expansion of their current office and also allow staff access to the system via the internet.
The system also automates reminders, generates reports and provides a good overview of their business activities at any moment in time.
Data is transferred to Microsoft Word in order to automatically generate client letters – thereby saving considerable time & expense.

A key objective of the project was to migrate data from the existing Microsoft Access system to Microsoft SQL Server Express. This proved to be a real challenge because even though the database in the original system had not been designed properly we had to ensure that it was imported into the new design schema.

Screenshots:

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Technology Used:

Microsoft SQL Server Express, c#, ASP.NET, XML, Microsoft Word Automation, Microsoft Access

Testimonial:

We had a very old data capture system, which was failing to produce the reports we needed for our existing clients. We meet with 4mation IT, who talked us through all the procedures which the new system needed to provide, they then produced a system for our approval, well within the timetable we had both agreed, and then with continuous amendments and improvements delivered a first class system with support at a level that I have not encountered before, from a small business. A first rate product and well worth the money, I would recommend them to any company.

Steve Pulfer (Cooke Rudling Ltd)

Maxpower Automotive is a Birmingham based company which specialises in manufacturing a diverse range of tube & pips for the automotive industry.

Project Description:

Maxpower had a requirement to be able to print off a barcode label once a successful quality check has been performed on a part. The system needs to scan in a supplier barcode and perform a lookup in a database and find the matching barcode number. When the appropriate signal is received from a jig, the Maxpower barcode label needs to be printed out.

A key challenge on the project was to be able to produce a barcode label that was small enough to be attached to the part but also readable by standard barcode scanners.

Screenshots:

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Technology Used:

Microsoft.NET, c#, Microsoft Access Database

Testimonial:

All of our dealings with 4mation have been professional. All enquiries or problems were resolved in a timely manner, no matter how often we changed our minds, resulting in us getting the system we wanted in a good timeframe and at a great price.

Adam Handley (MaxPower Automotive)

Please note as some of our projects are protected under non-disclosure agreements we cannot show you everything but hopefully you will get an idea of what we can do for your business from the case studies.