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Bespoke
Software
Standard Software
Print Projects
Printing Companies
Haulage & Warehousing
Engineering
Licence Fees
On-Going Support
Hardware
Networks
Some Design Philosophies
We do this...
We help small & medium sized companies to generate sustainable
profit by designing & creating IT systems.
Often these are based on their existing, manual systems. Typically
these cover systems such as:
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Accounts
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Invoicing
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Stock Control
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Costing
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Estimating
Designing a system to meet your requirements means that it is
easy to implement since staff have had an input on the way it
works and so the software functionality is already familiar.
Because we can design & implement from scratch our customers
get 100% of what they want.
We design systems that are fast and reliable, based on a proven
portfolio of tried-and-tested software components.
In many cases our clients also want us to take ownership of
their whole systems, i.e. all of their software, hardware and
networks, and we can provide these services too. This can mean
acting as their ‘external’ IT department dealing
with day-to-day networking, PC or system software problems,
either directly on-site or via a remote link over the Internet.
We try to base our work within the Midlands but that hasn’t
stopped us having clients in London, the South East and the
North West.
We offer a free initial consultancy so, if you feel that our
products & services may benefit you, please use the Contact
Us page to get in touch.
Bespoke Software
We have been writing software for over 25 years and in that
time we have built up not only a wide portfolio of clients and
projects but also a huge library of software components. This
forms the basis for most of the new projects that we undertake.
The result is that whilst our software is always tailored to
your needs it is not always written completely from scratch.
This increases reliability and keeps costs down. If you are
interested, some ideas on our design philosophies are given
below.
Standard Software
Almost all of our projects are tailored to some extent. However,
we might just have already written the system that you are looking
for, but for someone else. Software costs are labour intensive
so the cost of a project depends on how long it is going to
take. If your requirements match some, or all, of an existing
project then this will reduce costs. Contact
Us to get in touch.
Print Projects
Many of our projects have been undertaken through the BPIF (British
Printing Industries Federation www.britishprint.com).
Much of the software available today for the UK printing marketplace
is aimed at the 15+ user sites. This is because, for the MIS
providers, the cost of sales for a 15 user site is not dissimilar
to the costs incurred selling a 3/5 user site. Not surprisingly
mainstream MIS providers have concentrated on the larger end
of the market place and the smaller businesses have been left
with very limited alternatives.
At Vantage we have specialised in SME companies with a range
of products & services to suit the smaller company.
Printing Companies
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Estimating systems for:
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Sheet
Fed
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Digital
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Continuous
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Flexographic
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Screen
Print
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Envelope
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Cartons
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Job
Costing
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Specialist
Sales Order Processing, Web Ordering.
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Full
range of accounts & reporting suites geared to specific
printers needs.
Haulage & Warehousing
We have also done work for transport companies & freight
forwarders. In this general ‘Haulage’ category we
have covered
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Estimating
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Order
Processing; logging orders and jobs
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Loading
Lists
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Job
Costing
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Invoicing
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Warehouse
Management
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Bonded
Warehousing
Engineering
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Manufacturing
Systems
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Stock
Control with Parts Explosion
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RFID
Licence
Fees
An important aspect of our business is that there are no annual
licence fees payable on any of the software that we write for
you. Why do we do this? We feel that it is unfair to customers
to repeatedly charge for products that they have already purchased.
We make charges only for amendments and requests for changes.
We may also offer you additional ‘add-on’ software
components but these will always be the subject of a one-off
charge with no recurring fees.
On-Going Support
Even the most reliable systems will eventually require maintenance
or repair.
It is therefore inevitable that you will need some form of support
at some time in the future. Nowadays it is usual to have an
on-site maintenance contract for business servers. However the
falling cost of hardware has lead many organizations to reject
the same response cover for their client PCs opting instead
to replace failed hardware rather than try to repair it.
Even if client machines are replaced by ‘store bought’
PCs they still need to be configured to work on your network,
have, say, Microsoft Office suite installed, use your email
& Internet settings, add Firewall and Antivirus software.
Other application software such as Spyware and utilities such
as Norton, PC Anywhere, WinZip may have to be reinstalled as
well as software and drivers for printers, scanners etc. The
time and expertise required to configure even a basic PC can
be considerable.
Maintenance contracts generally do not cover all of the possible
options and it is prudent to have support in place before you
have a problem.
The following examples are typical of other software requirements
that you may have:
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Modifications
or additions to programs as your business needs change.
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General
help and advice on the telephone or by modem or VPN.
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Rebuilding
data files if they have become corrupted.
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Extra
on-site training etc.
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Program
and file corruption caused by computer viruses.
Some organizations have the capability to perform the functions
listed above ‘in-house’ but if you do not have the
required personnel or would prefer to have an external organization
responsible for this work then you should consider our Reducing
Balance Software Scheme (RBSS).
Under the scheme you purchase a number of hours of software
work in advance. These hours are charged at a discounted price;
the current rate less 20%
When work is done on your behalf we deduct the time spent and
send you a regular statement showing all work done and the balance
left on your account. Any additional expenses (accommodation,
rail travel etc) are either passed on at-cost or billed direct.
Travel to work on site is charged at ½ of the discounted
hourly rate to cover all time & fuel / travel costs.
This scheme is not an annually renewable contract (like insurance)
and any unused hours are carried forward indefinitely. When
your hours have all been used you receive a further invoice.
We have found that we can only offer rapid, professional support
to our customers by having an agreement in place at an early
stage.
The scheme is not compulsory & you only need to inform us
if you decide not to take part in the scheme (i.e. you wish
to do all your own maintenance, support etc.).
Hardware
Most PC hardware (including new PCs) is supplied at cost with
the only charges made for:
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Build
/ Assembly
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Delivery
There is no appreciable margin to be made on hardware nowadays
but we would rather build it (or source it) ourselves than have
to deal with poorly constructed hardware with low grade components.
All hardware has a 12 months return to base warranty. Because
of our ‘at cost’ policy we can only supply hardware
to clients who are purchasing software systems.
Networks
We offer both on-site & remote management packages. Our
typical client profile has a turnover between £750,000
& £4m. At this size many feel they are too small to
justify full time (or even part-time) IT staff. In the ‘owner-driver’
businesses the role of IT Manager often falls to the accounts
staff and as business grows so do the demands on their time
& IT expertise. We can help bridge the gap by providing
services on an ‘as-required’ basis either through
a fixed monthly retention or on hourly rate where clients just
pay for what they use.
We
also supply…
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Broadband
supplies / installation & commissioning
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Antivirus
protection / hardware firewalls
Some
Design Philosophies
When we started writing software we worked to some pretty clear
design objectives. Our software had to be:
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Robust
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Easy
to Use
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Easy
to Change
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Small
& Light
Robust
It’s no use having any software if it is not reliable.
So we build in software error handling on top of a rock solid
data structure to ensure that the software is always available
to use.
Easy to Use
Many of out projects are designed on the back of an existing
system, perhaps a manual system. Because our customers get involved
with the way that the programs are going to work and reflect
the way that they do things now, then the implementation is
always easy since they already know what to expect. During development
we provide ‘screen shots’ and development screen
layouts so that the users can see how it is going to work before
we come on the first day of installation.
Easy to Change
We looked for a long time to find the correct software compiler
that would allow us to create flexible software that is simple
to change. After a number of false starts with Microsoft language
products we now use an alternative Basic language product from
the USA, supported in Europe from Spain. This produces 32 bit
native runtime executables for the Windows environment. We find
this approach far more flexible than, say, Microsoft Visual
Basic or .Net, since we can produce individual software program
modules for specific tasks rather than having all functionality
tied up in one huge program. We can therefore create custom
program modules without upsetting the main body of our code.
We try to keep programming ‘options’ (i.e. choices
that customers want) held in parameter or .ini files on their
systems. These can be global (i.e. the option is enabled for
all users) or local (the option is enabled for this user only).
The use of these parameter files means that changes can be easily
made and only affect a target group of users.
Since we go back a long way with some of our customers we have
to be able to locate and update code that may be 10 or 15 years
old (or older) with the certainty that we can make alterations
without adversely affecting performance.
We use 2 software platforms Theos (www.theos-software.com)
and Microsoft Windows.
Small
& Light
Why was this a requirement? On network systems it has been customary
to load the product software individually onto each client machine.
This obviously causes problems if a) a client machine fails/breaks
down and all of the software and settings have to be reinstalled
or b) when changes or updates are made to the programs then
every client machine has to be updated. Some software packages
overcome this by having all the client machines periodically
check the version number on a master copy on the server. We
think all of this is unnecessary when you can have the programs
resident on the server with client machines having a simple
bootstrap program just to kick-start them when they log in.
All our software is stored on a central disk (normally on the
server but it could be anywhere) and program sizes are very
small, typically 200Kb/300Kb each. This means that network traffic
is very low but there are never any issues about which version
of the program a user is running. If it’s loaded once
then everyone is running the same version.
We can
expand our software program portfolio as much as we like. Although
all of our clients receive all of the programs there are none
that would use the entire suite. Since they are only loaded
at execution time the overhead is merely a minor one of storage
on their server (up to 100Mb) and not one of execution speed.
Software
is broken down into small, manageable chunks so:
a) There is only a single version of the software and this is
located on your server.
b) This means that all of the client machines run exactly the
same software direct from the server. There is never any issue
over version control. If one user can run the software then
any of them can.
c) Installing a new PC is really easy as only start-up software
is needed.
d) Network versions can run up to 90 concurrent users.
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