Here's a Notes application I developed in 1997
Thursday, September 9th, 2004
Back in my days as the IT and Office Services Manager of Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Camas, Washington office, my team was assigned the task of creating a system to help manage the process of tracking documents that are critical to UL's product certification process. In 1997 the Camas office was the only office running Lotus Notes however, the General Manager of the Raleigh-Durham (RTP) office insisted that the application be developed in Lotus Notes since this was the direction the corporation was taking for messaging and collaboration. He also had seen the work that my team had developed at the Camas office and was truly a "believer".
As part of UL's process to ensure the integrity of the UL listing mark inspectors are sent out to factories to ensure that the product that UL engineers tested and wrote what is called a "Procedure" is being manufactured using the parts and materials listed in the Procedure. When an inspector discovers an issue they can create one of three documents. A Variation Notice or "VN" is written when the inspector finds something being done that doesn't match the Procedure. This can actually shut down an entire production line if it is serious enough. The second document that can be issued is a "Procedure Error Report". This document simply indicates that UL made a mistake in the Procedure that needs to be corrected. Keep in mind that once the Procedure is corrected that the revised pages need to be sent out to all of the factories and UL offices that maintain copies of the Procedure. The third document is called an "Inspection Report" which is a summary of the actual inspection that was performed.
These documents are sent into to UL's offices throughout the world for review and processing. Our job was to a system to track all of these documents within UL. Our first office to tackle was the one in RTP. Keep in mind that this system would later on be deployed throughout the world. The phase that I was responsible for did not include the inspectors using laptops. Today inspectors are using laptops to fill out these forms and are replicating them back to the database.
I pulled out a copy of a PowerPoint presentation I gave when we were rolling this system out to other offices. Here are some bullets from my presentation that are worth noting:
We are asked specifically to develop the application by the RTP GM simply because we were able to deliver enterprise class application on-time. The other groups within UL were using Visual Basic, Oracle and other tools which didn't have nearly the RAD capability we had with Notes. Oh and did I note that the Field Compliance System had to talk to an Oracle back end to retrieve data on the customer and it's manufacturing facilities? You will see a button on one of the screen shots that is labeled "Get CIS data". The code behind this button fired off a stored procedure to a mainframe in Northbrook, IL and retrieved all the necessary data.
The Field Compliance System also included several basic workflow mechanisms as well as weekly reporting. This system is now in full production at UL and inspectors are now using laptops for data entry. Also take a close look at some of the screenshots. You will notice that I was using "Lotus Components" on my Notes desktop and I was also using BeyondMail :-).
As part of UL's process to ensure the integrity of the UL listing mark inspectors are sent out to factories to ensure that the product that UL engineers tested and wrote what is called a "Procedure" is being manufactured using the parts and materials listed in the Procedure. When an inspector discovers an issue they can create one of three documents. A Variation Notice or "VN" is written when the inspector finds something being done that doesn't match the Procedure. This can actually shut down an entire production line if it is serious enough. The second document that can be issued is a "Procedure Error Report". This document simply indicates that UL made a mistake in the Procedure that needs to be corrected. Keep in mind that once the Procedure is corrected that the revised pages need to be sent out to all of the factories and UL offices that maintain copies of the Procedure. The third document is called an "Inspection Report" which is a summary of the actual inspection that was performed.
These documents are sent into to UL's offices throughout the world for review and processing. Our job was to a system to track all of these documents within UL. Our first office to tackle was the one in RTP. Keep in mind that this system would later on be deployed throughout the world. The phase that I was responsible for did not include the inspectors using laptops. Today inspectors are using laptops to fill out these forms and are replicating them back to the database.
I pulled out a copy of a PowerPoint presentation I gave when we were rolling this system out to other offices. Here are some bullets from my presentation that are worth noting:
- Approximately 30,000 VN's were issued annually
- Approximately 2,000 Inspection Reports with actionable comments were issued annually
- Approximately 6,000 Procedure Error Reports were issued annually
- Received request to begin process analysis on March 7, 1997
- Think enterprise and think global
- System must be completed by May 1, 1997
- The Field Compliance System (FCS) was born on April 9, 1997
We are asked specifically to develop the application by the RTP GM simply because we were able to deliver enterprise class application on-time. The other groups within UL were using Visual Basic, Oracle and other tools which didn't have nearly the RAD capability we had with Notes. Oh and did I note that the Field Compliance System had to talk to an Oracle back end to retrieve data on the customer and it's manufacturing facilities? You will see a button on one of the screen shots that is labeled "Get CIS data". The code behind this button fired off a stored procedure to a mainframe in Northbrook, IL and retrieved all the necessary data.
The Field Compliance System also included several basic workflow mechanisms as well as weekly reporting. This system is now in full production at UL and inspectors are now using laptops for data entry. Also take a close look at some of the screenshots. You will notice that I was using "Lotus Components" on my Notes desktop and I was also using BeyondMail :-).
Comments
Comment posted by Bruce Elgort09/09/2004 12:05:00 PM
And did you also know that I loved Banyan VINES?
Comment posted by Rob McDonagh09/09/2004 11:58:45 AM
Homepage: http://www.CaptainOblivious.com
BeyondMail?!?!? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Excuse me, I need to have a few beers to wash that memory away...
Comment posted by Rob McDonagh09/09/2004 03:33:30 PM
Homepage: http://www.captainoblivious.com
Hey, you're talking to a Certified Banyan Engineer, here. Or something like that. Gah! Frightening...
Comment posted by Chris Hudson09/09/2004 08:26:30 PM
Homepage: http://www.abs.gov.au
I also used to love Banyan Vines... was far ahead of its time in some respects. In others, well..... 
Even though we have been using Windows Server since 1997, I still occasionally come across documentary remnants of the Banyan environment hidden in bookshelves.
