Case Study: Engineering & Design
The Scenario
iKoustic is an award-winning (Winners of a 2023 Constructing Exellence Award) soundproofing company serving customers around the world. The company has a reputation for delivering high-quality products and services to its customers, and for being innovative and competitive in the market.
Quick and extensive increases in market share allowed iKoustic to invest in developing and extending their internal systems so that they could further embed and expand upon their growing success.
Some of the key areas it was decided to improve upon included:
- Replacing a manual, spreadsheet-based quoting system with the usual versioning and sharing issues.
- Integration of separate business applications requiring re-keying of data leading to excessive administrative overhead and the possibility of user error.
- Accelerated process improvement with rapid evaluation using integrated reporting.
- Using joined-up data to track customer journeys.
- KPI tracking to reward team excellence and guide training requirements.
The Plan
After assessing the different possible routes, it was determined that the best way to address these issues and take iKoustic forward to their next evolution as a business was a bespoke business system from Working Data.
The custom software project consisted of these phases:
- Planning and analysis: The project team of developers and key stakeholders was assembled and a phased approach decided upon. This was chosen as it would allow sequential benefits to be more quickly realised in the production environment.
- Testing and validation: Each iteration was fully tested against a schema of scenarios and functionality checks. This greatly reduced the possibility of bugs finding their way into the Live system. Test users were identified and given specific tasks to perform and report back on to direct any follow-up activities.
- Training and deployment: iKoustic staff and stakeholders were trained and supported throughout the testing and validation stages to help them acclimatise to the new system. Some follow-up training was identified and provided after deployment to ensure that the full benefit was realised.
- Maintenance and improvement: Working Data continue to provide maintenance and requested functional and reporting updates for the application, ensuring its reliability and robustness. Continuous improvement is pursued by collecting and analysing data and feedback across the team and system.
The Outcomes
Completed on time and on-budget, the software implementation project brought meaningful benefits and improvements to iKoustic, such as:
- Efficiency and productivity boost with the automated integration of multiple platforms and functions, eliminating the need for manual, repetitive tasks.
- Greater, real-time visibility of the current operational state-of-play, along with live Key Performance Indicators allowing shopfloor management to monitor and encourage success and progress.
- A significant reduction in both cost and possibility of user-induced data entry errors due to the integration and automation between multiple platforms. This also gave rise to the benefit of a massive increase in data accuracy and reporting consistency.
- Customer satisfaction and retention also grew as the new bespoke application allowed the sales team to respond authentically to customer requests in an appropriate and timely manner. Product delivery increased in speed and became measurably more reliable.
In Conclusion
iKoustic’s implementation of bespoke software was a successful demonstration of how how custom software can help an organisation to upgrade internal processes and functions, with a noticeable translation in customer satisfaction and reduction in operational overhead.
Working Data provided the bespoke application platform to allow iKoustic to pursue and achieve its objectives and goals.
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