Case Studies

Case One - Streamlining the Processes at a Financial Institution

A financial institution that specialized in energy lending to consumers needed a loan origination system that allowed them the flexibility to track many unique parameters in order to properly administer different government programs with special requirements. Commercially available solutions were too rigid in their capabilities and weren't able to meet these needs. In addition those systems were very cumbersome to use and poorly integrated with the internal processes of the company, requiring lots of extra effort to manually process data from the loan applications. The company also had many data reporting requirements for the various programs that couldn't be met with what they had.

A brand new database solution was designed to meet the needs of the company. The new database was designed to interface with many of the existing systems that the company used, from gathering loan applications from the website to pulling credit to creating and sending out the appropriate documents to customers and contractors. The database was developed in a modular fashion with scalability in mind so that future needs could be handled with a minimum of additional effort. The employees of the company were involved in every step of the development process to ensure that their needs were met and that the system would be well-accepted by the people using it on a daily basis. The solution allowed the company to drastically decrease the turnaround time and labor for processing loan applications while enabling them to easily analyze data for the programs that they were administering.

Case Two - A Better Way to Seal Ampules

A local company desired to improve upon an ampule-sealing device that they were selling by developing the next generation of their product. By listening to their customers they knew what types of characteristics and features would be necessary to ensure that the redesign would be a success.

The redesign involved improving the reliability and durability by replacing many mechanical components with electronics and sensors, which allowed for customer-requested adjustments to be made while using the device, such as speed and timing control. Any parts that were wear items were designed to be easily replaceable. Other attributes that were important to the customers such as noise and ease of adjustment were also addressed. In addition the modular design of the updated device allowed for flexibility in manufacturing and future product development. The building of subassemblies could be contracted out and assembly was simplified, reducing the amount of labor and lead times necessary to build the device. The system was also designed to accommodate add-on modules so that it would be easy to expand the device to handle additional needs that customers had, including gas purging and liquid filling of ampules.

Case Three - Engine Software Calibration Maintenance

A major diesel engine manufacturer was having problems maintaining all the different engine calibrations. The process was done by hand, and as such it was very time consuming and error prone. There were hundreds of files that needed to be updated and documentation that needed to be written for each change. Corrective actions were frequently required and engineers were working 16-hour days to get some of the calibration projects done. No one was really sure if anything was being done correctly. People were doing a very poor job of tracking the changes that were made and it was tough to trace histories.

An Access database was developed to fully manage the calibration process. By the time the program was finished, the company was able to successfully manage and modify the engine calibration software for every engine platform they had. The database generated automated scripts, which applied the appropriate changes to the calibrations, maintained detailed history logs, and performed calibration compares to ensure that the changes were done correctly. In addition, the database was even able to catch and correct errors in the calibrations that had occurred during previous manual changes. The system proved itself during the launch of the 2007-emission engines, which required constant updates to the calibrations and new calibration releases. This was more complexity for calibration management than had ever been experienced by the company before. A job that originally was distributed across four engineers was now handled flawlessly by one engineer as a part of their job, and I was still able to leave early every day.

Case Four - Developing a Mobile Office Solution for a Vehicle

A major vehicle manufacturer desired to develop an interior for one of their vehicles which would allow the drivers to do office work in their vehicles while they were parked. They enlisted the help of a team of Carnegie Mellon students for this task.

Many personal interviews were conducted with the target customers to figure out what types of things they used their vehicles for and what else they needed to do that they were unable to do in their vehicles. Through the interviews, it was determined that there were a variety of areas in which the current vehicle interiors were not meeting their needs. Several different design prototypes were made and user feedback was solicited about the possible solutions that had been developed. This allowed the team to combine the best ideas together to develop a good overall solution. The final solution made it easy for these vehicle owners to use the equipment that they wanted to in the truck by providing an appropriate infrastructure for power, communication, and storage of office equipment and allowing them to access the equipment that they needed to quickly. In addition, there were many other insights that the vehicle owners had about other areas of vehicle design that were able to be shared with the vehicle manufacturer to give their product an edge over the competition.

More information

If you're interested in finding out more about how I can help you, please don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I generally serve the state of Pennsylvania and surrounding areas, but geographical constraints won't prevent me from trying to help out wherever I can!

Cell: 484-695-5651

Brian Feldman - 2/22/2010