ValleyCrest Companies
Challenges:
The ValleyCrest Companies is largest integrated landscape services company in the United States, and delivers an array of services worldwide. At any given time the Landscape Division has about 20 branches managing over 1500 projects. It is important that all of these projects be managed in a coherent manner that does not add burdensome overhead. ValleyCrest required a system that can:
- Maintain data integrity
- Reduce paper output
- Reduce duplication of effort
- Ensure that Change orders are properly tracked and billed
ValleyCrest chose the best of breed software: JD Edwards as their financial system, and Primavera Contract Manager for project management. They hired Partners Consulting to help them design the business processes and the technical infrastructure that helps them achieve their goals.
Our Solution:
Partners worked closely with ValleyCrest to deliver a system in a cost-conscious and timely manner. The three areas the project can be broken into are:
Business Processes - Partners and ValleyCrest held a series of meetings to review all of the business processes with an eye to using Primavera and JD Edwards in the most efficient way, geared toward ValleyCrest's specific and unique business practices. These processes were turned into training manuals for end-users and technical specifications for a set of integration applications.
Automated Integrations - Partners designed a set of applications that move data between JDE and Primavera. A key function of these applications is that they check data integrity and report on any discrepancies in the data, whether through human or system errors. Only clean data which follows the business rules is allowed to move from one system to another.
Reliable Reporting - The key idea in all of this is that project managers, branch managers, auditors, and everyone involved has a consistent view of all projects. Partners worked with ValleyCrest to create a set of reports that show key metrics on all projects. These reports are used on a daily basis to both view project status and to make predictions on final project cots. From the beginning of a job through the end, everyone can easily see where the project stands at any given point in time, both from a financial point of view, and from a deliverable point of view. Costs are completely matched in JD Edwards and Contract Manager, down to the cost code level, allowing users to report out of whichever system is mot suitable to their needs.
Partners has an integration framework that is designed to let us create integration code quickly and reliably. We take a systematic, repeatable, approach that allows clients to focus on business requirements, while Partners implements the technical details. The result is a system that uses established, testable components which are tailored to the client's specific needs.
Results:Partners' relationship with ValleyCrest goes back to 1999, when Partners first helped ValleyCrest convert a custom DOS-based estimating application into a Windows client. In 2001 they asked Partners to integrate Primavera Expedition 7.0 with JDE World. That system was completed and deployed in 2002, and has been running ever since then. During that time, ValleyCrest has grown, and both JDE and Primavera have had a number of upgrades, yet the fundamental ideas behind the integrated systems have remained the same.
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