Medical Distributors speed up processing and connect branches

Medical equipment importer and distributor, Medical Distributors is reaping the benefits of a technology upgrade that has dramatically improved processing times and online communications with regional offices, significantly reduced hardware maintenance costs.

In the R300 000 project, Pick Systems Africa`s VAR Scarabeus, has supplied new hardware - an Intel Madrona data server with a 9Gb hard drive and 250Mb RAM and implemented Microsoft`s NT operating system, converting Medical Distributor`s existing data from a proprietary Mentor system to run on Pick`s D³database. Medical Distributors` Durban and Cape Town branches were brought on-line with the introduction of a wide area network (WAN).

Says Medical Distributors financial director Tom Burger: "Although Y2k problems played a part in the decision to upgrade, we were more concerned that our branches were not on-line and that we had outgrown our existing hardware, which meant that we were rapidly running out of capacity.

Scarabeus MD Simon May says that the entire conversion was carried out over a weekend, ensuring that Medical Distributors experienced no business disruption. "Our task was greatly simplified because the Mentor operating system and Pick D³ are compatible. We only had to make a few minor changes to the code and then recompile the database."

Medical Distributors` 32-user system handles all of its inventory, sales, debtors and purchasing systems. The company uses the MasterPack suite of financial software, a powerful solution designed specifically for the Pick environment.

"The company needed to upgrade its equipment and operating system," says May, "partly to alleviate potential year 2000 problems but also to take advantage of the more modern features Pick D³ offers, such as links into the Windows environment."

A key benefit of the implementation is increased capacity and processing speed. Where backups were taking nearly five hours to complete, this has been reduced to 15 minutes. Month-end processing, which could take 12 to 16 hours and occupy a full day`s business, is now completed in two hours. Day-end on sales and marketing has been reduced from 30 minutes to a matter of seconds, and management information reports can be generated in minutes instead of hours.

"Putting the branches on-line is facilitating tighter stock control, and ensuring that the Durban and Cape Town operations can produce their own invoices instead of relying on the Johannesburg head office," says Burger. "Branches also now have ready access to any information they may need to deal with inquiries."

"We`re already achieving significant hardware maintenance savings," adds Burger. "With our legacy system we were spending approximately R35,000 per annum. With the new system we`ve budgeting to spend less than R10, 000 per annum on maintenance."

Another important advantage of the upgrade, according to May, is the ability to gear development to use ODBC facilities. "This will allow Medical Distributors to move data easily between different formats - for example, from the Pick database to an Excel spreadsheet.

"Creating an interface with the Windows, Microsoft Office and NT environment also facilitates quicker processing. Compiling price lists in the past was a manual procedure, with prices typed into a spreadsheet. The upgrade has automated that process, enabling comprehensive price lists to be compiled in minutes.

"Ad hoc querying and report generation is also far faster, using the power of the Windows spreadsheet environment for data manipulation and graphical display.