| System Title |
Patio (PatioMaker) |
| Client |
SGC, a vendor of patio blue stone
pavers. |
| Business Goal |
SGC sells patio tiles, which need to be custom
configured for each job. Their manual system required that a designer determine an
aesthetic layout for each job from scratch, starting with a blank sheet of graph paper.
When the design was complete, a count of tiles of each size was done manually, and the
tiles loaded onto the customer's vehicle. Often, the counts were wrong. |
| Complications |
None, except no experience in
computer-aided-design (CAD). |
| Our Approach |
Create a CAD program that would allow for
saving and recalling designs, and for determining the bill of materials. |
| Technologies Used |
Visual Basic 3.0,
since updated to 6.0. |
| User Base |
Unknown |
| Applicability of
Techniques |
Any sales aid. This program
(which is still available) can also be used with any rectangular pavers -
bluestone, sandstone, etc. |
| System Description |
A sales clerk can use this program to bring up a
standard design, print it and give it to the customer. It includes a graphical layout and
a bill of materials. The user can quickly build a library of standard
designs. For odd-sized jobs or special cases, the designer is able to bring up
a prior design as a starting point.
Note: We have sequentially updated this program and
offer it to the entire Blue Stone community under the name of PatioMaker.
|
 (Click the
image to see the screen shot full size.) |
