Case Studies

Problem:

The Veterans Administration had a practice of purchasing certain products, warehousing them, then packaging and shipping them to qualifying veterans. They wished to reduce the handling costs to taxpayers by having manufacturers ship their products directly to the veterans with VA paperwork.

Action:

Mr. Lake designed and programmed the computer system to accomplish the VA shipping system for the Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories.
The way the system works is this: The VA sends order data electronically to Ross. Mr. Lake's software tells the shipping department how to bundle products for minimum shipping cost. It produces labels and paperwork designed to VA specifications. It interfaces with the company's software to get lot numbers and expiration dates, then reports back the information to adjust inventory. It produces shipping confirmation data for the VA. Billing information for the shipping company is also generated.

Result:

Ross Products is now exercising a new business activity. As a consultant, Mr. Lake was not privy to the numbers, but he had heard that before his system was implemented the department involved was not considered a significant source of income for the company, but that now it is.

Problem:

The problem was the need maintain departmental productivity after a hiring freeze.

Action:

A loan officer periodically needed to adjust certain loans for which she was responsible. She reasoned that if she could get a report that listed these loans, she wouldn't have to spend the time to search for them. She asked Mr. Lake to create the report. Mr. Lake looked beyond the loan officer's specific request and made an inquiry regarding the report's purpose. She replied that she would use the loans listed to update the computer's records, then write the customer a letter explaining what she had done and why. Mr. Lake told her that he knew how to automate both operations. All she needed to do was to review the report to verify that the proposed changes were correct, then call the computer room to authorize the automated processing. Once confidence in the process was established, the report became a record after the fact. This was done without writing new software, but by taking advantage of software already available

When others in the Loan Department learned what Mr. Lake had done for this officer, they presented similar chores that could be automated in a similar way. The news spread to other departments with similar results.

Result:

Productivity throughout the bank was able to be increased on a large scale.

Problem:

Clerical personnel had to enter data and run programs. The clerk had to run two separate systems, keeping track of "run dates" that were different in each system and two to three days behind the current date. Mistakes were numerous, requiring much database repair. The clerk was not always forthcoming about the cause of the problem. This caused the data processing staff to suspect that there might be program bugs. Research had to be done to confirm the validity of the programs.

Action:

At the time that Mr. Lake conceived the solution, he was without an assignment from his management. He saw the problem and addressed it in the following manner:

He created a machine readable log file into which was recorded the work that the clerk did on the computer. The project had three parts:

1. A system level program that started when the clerk logged onto her terminal and ran in a loop until the clerk signed out.

2. A control program that managed the work. It was executed at the top of the loop. It read the log and created a menu that listed only the tasks permissable at that particular point in time. The clerk's selection was passed to the system program, which executed the requested task, updated the log and restarted the control program. When the system program could not ascertain just what the clerk was doing, it would ask the clerk, then record the answer.

3. A program for use by home office staff that would read the log file and format it into a report, which could be viewed or printed.

Result:

Mistakes were eliminated. Training costs were reduced. Accurate information was provided to management in a more timely manner, resulting in higher clerical productivity and much less need of support from data processing.

The immediate result of the installation of the system was that the clerk complained that the new system would not allow her to do what she needed to do. Data Processing personnel were able to examine the log file and tell her what she had done (which was not always what she said she had done) and advise her regarding what she should do. She couldn't make the mistakes that she was in the habit of making! Shortly thereafter, she resigned without notice. Her manager had to run the system. The manager desired a certain report, which was not on the menu, so she called Data Processing for help. Mr. Lake looked at the log file and told her that the report, if run at that time, would have contained misleading figures. If she ran another program first, which was on the menu, the option to run the report she wanted would appear on the menu and would have good information in it. She was elated to find that a potentially costly mistake was avoided by Mr. Lake's software. When she hired another clerk, she found that this system made training much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Problem:

Within the accounting system of a large electric generating facility, the enterprise was divided and subdivided into cost centers that were related to one another in a hierarchal pyramid. The bottom level cost centers accumulated data in a spreadsheet. Near the end of each month, these bottom level cost centers' data were rolled up into a number of higher level cost centers, which were, in turn, rolled up again into still higher level cost centers until the whole plant was represented on a spreadsheet as a single cost center. This process required a large amount of overtime for the accounting staff for the last four working days of each month.

Action:

Mr. Lake wrote a spreadsheet macro that would automate the whole process.

Result:

The product that he delivered reduced the four days to four hours! An estimate of the actual cost savings could be figured by multiplying the cost of three accountants by the three days, four hours saved. At the time these accountants might have earned $80,000 each, wages and benefits. This figures to about $300 a day. Multiply that by 3 accountants, 3.5 days per month saved and twelve months and you have a figure of $37,800 saved. Consider also the quality of life issue with the accounting staff being relieved of a dreaded chore. Consider also that the cut off time for the data included was able to be moved nearer the end of the month, making the numbers more useful.

Problem:

In the 1970s, programs were written on pads of paper forms that were then punched into cards. A database of the time, IMS, required the coding of one page of paper for each database access. Mr. Lake noted that standards set by his employer caused most of that coding to be the same for each access.

Action:

Mr. Lake conceived of, designed, and wrote a system that enabled database access to be done in one line of code, automating a repetitive and cumbersome task.

Result:

His manager estimated that the savings was the equivalent of the hiring of two more programmers.