10.12.07  Fuelling Change at DNW

Davies & Newman Wake are Bunker Brokers. This means they can source fuel from around the world for cargo and other large ships. Every day they track fuel prices from around the world. They want their customers to have personalised email telling them about prices in the ports of the parts of the globe they are interested in.

A Star is developing a system that will, not only list the prices but will indicate by colour coding how the price has changed from the day before. If the price has gone up from the day before, it will be shown in red, if the same it will be black and if decreased, it will be green. The raw data will be stored in an SQL Server database, allowing a history of fuel prices to be maintained. Every day a new set of data will be added and emailed directly to customers and potential customers.

This promises to be a fantastic sales tool for DMW.

13.12.07  “So what do you do exactly?”

Many companies have no idea how staff actually spend their time at work. Are they doing the jobs they are best qualified to do? Are they pushing paperwork when they ought to be negotiating or seeing Clients?

At Jackson Samuel they conduct surveys into how staff spend their time – the sort of work they do – their level of responsibility – the amount of supervision they get. A Star have designed an analysis system which takes data from an Excel spreadsheet completed by each member of staff and stores it in a Database.

The data is analysed in many different ways – by comparing each member of staff against their peers, measuring the time spent by each level of staff on Administration, Training etc to produce a full picture of how well a department is performing. This information is correlated with surveys produced by staff who use the department.

The system A Star have produced displays Bar Charts, Pie and Scatter Diagrams for each staff member and also by work groupings such as Job Title and Seniority. Because the entire system was automated, outputs showing the main results were ready within 2 days of the last survey being sent in.

13.12.07  Resolving Insolvency for Leigh & Co

Insolvency Practitioners look after ailing companies on behalf of the creditors. They need to account to them for their time and expenses. This takes a great deal of time not only entering time booked but also checking for errors and omissions.

A Star has modified the Time Booking System so successfully developed for Jeff Lermer & Associates to record time and produce specialised invoices and the SIP 9 form required when a Company is in Administration.

The Time booking system distinguishes between work done Pre-Administration and During the Administrative period and produces a detailed analysis of all time booked and all expenses incurred.

Installation is planned in early January 2008 and should dramatically reduce the cost of recording and tracking work.

02.05.07  Staff Training for Channel 5

Channel 5, in common with many large organisations provide a variety of different training courses to develop their staff. The Training Manager needed a way of analysing the data.

Firstly the data was grouped by Department and Training Budget, allowing each Department to check how much they were spending on Staff Training throughout the year.

Secondly, the data was sorted by Course so that the Training Manager could put people doing the same course into groups, so that training sessions could be organised effectively.

Data was imported from Excel Spreadsheets into Access in less than an hour. The system is now fully operational. “This is going to be a fantastic time-saver for us” says the Training Manager.

10.12.07  A Cleaner Solution for Clean Heat

Clean Heat Ltd install and maintain Air Conditioning and Heating Systems in Central London. One of their staff has developed a database which enabled them to log and bill Service Calls.

A Star has been asked to extend the database to produce a more detailed billing system which will show the hours worked on each job and the cost of materials on each invoice.

Another extension required was to produce a weekly diary to show the jobs being undertaken, and the staff working on each job.

The third and most significant addition was to generate at regular intervals, planned maintenance schedules. This means that if a customer requests a weekly or a monthly visit, the system will automatically generate a job booking with details of the work required. This ensures that

Clean Heat ensure all their customers’ plant is regularly serviced. This work has now been completed and a Maintenance Contract agreed so that queries and minor changes can be dealt with.

10.04.07  Recruitment Database for MTA Associates

MTA Associates specialise in the catering and Hotel area. Often, they need to find the right staff at very short notice. Using effective searching techniques, A Star are developing a system that allows staff to rapidly find all available staff in a particular category who are currently available for work and to categorise these by area and skills. For example they will instantly be able to find all the Bar Staff available for work near Greenwich.

This means that MTA will be in a position to fill vacancies quickly and accurately providing the best staff for any vacancy. The system has just been installed and is awaiting final ‘tweaking’.

02.04.07  Car Tracking for CarmichaelUK

CarmichaelUK specialise in the provision of Civil Engineering staff, Construction Jobs Overseas and Management Services to the Construction Industry. They often supply not just the member of staff but a vehicle as well. They needed a system that allows them to keep tabs on their vehicles. This includes Servicing, Maintenance, Tax and MOT’s as well as recording accidents, parking tickets etc. The system A Star designed also records the Driver Details and transfers Fuel Card data from Garage csv files.

Using this system, Dates when vehicles need attention are automatically flagged up. In addition the Driving Record of each driver can be logged and fuel usage checked against expected mileage.

The system is now in use and is dramatically cutting the cost of vehicle administration.

18.01.07   A ‘PDA’ Solution for H. Scriven Electrical

H. Scriven Electrical are an East Midlands Electrical Contracting Company who wanted an innovative solution to their Engineers having to send in timesheets and job details every week.

A Star Software has developed developing a solution to allow the Engineers to record their time bookings on a PDA. The data will be e-mailed back to Head Office together with a list of components they have used together with their prices. These will be used to create a bill for the customer. In addition the timesheet data will be used to calculate their wages.

“This means that administration will be kept to a minimum and productivity maximised” says Howard Scriven, MD of the Company.

18.01.07   Effective Time Billing for Jeff Lermer & Associates

Jeff Lermer & Associates, a rapidly growing Accountancy Firm needed to track and bill their time. Some time ago, A Star developed a system has proved very effective.

We have recently been asked to develop the system further to allow Standing Order and advance payments to be offset when making up the bills. Credits can be carried forward to balance future income and reports on cashflow and Staff Costings can be produced on a regular basis. This work has now been completed and is in daily use.

18.01.07   A Star and Brain Surgery? *** Update March 2007 ***

A Star was approached shortly before Christmas from an Codman, a Johnson & Johnson Company who makes catheters for removing Cerebrospinal fluid from the brain. It had a Powerpoint Presentation which needed to be seamlessly linked to an Excel Spreadsheet. The catheter is impregnated with antibiotics which reduce the risk of infection. The idea was to demonstrate how cost effective the catheter is by showing how many bed-nights and how much money would be saved by using this catheter instead of a standard one.

Using Excel and Powerpoint VBA programming we produced a solution that gave results tailored to the way individual hospital treated infected patients. It produced graphs which balanced the increased costs of the catheter against the savings obtained and calculated and marked up the break-even points.

The system was a success and now A Star has been asked to produce a german version which includes a pop-up calculator and additional graphs.

18.08.06   Back to School with A Star

Running a Nursery needs a lot of administration. Records need to be kept of children’s addresses and family, the Class Teacher, allergies and special requirements. Letters, invoices and receipts all need to be produced from a very busy school office.

The database was begun by one of the Nursery Admin Team but was far from User-friendly and required new tables, queries and reports to be produced for each term’s intake. A Star upgraded the system so that it really is easy to use.

“The system is much better.” Sue Garcin, Head of Administration –The Chidren’s House.

05.05.06   In House at Castle

Castle Insurance Brokers, the largest Insurance Broker in Berkhamsted has asked to provide a quotation and Client Tracking System for Let Property Insurance.

The system is designed to be used over the phone to find the best quotation for the property using three different Insurers. When the best insurer has been selected it produces all the paperwork to send to the Client including Statement of Fact and the Insurance Schedule.

The system records Policyholders, details of their properties and calculate the Insurance Premium. It will then issue all the paperwork including Quotation Documents, Policy Schedules, record the payments and automatically send a Renewal Invitation when the policy is about to expire.

“This system is going to save us a lot of time “ says Stephen Bateman, MD of Castle Insurance.

18.08.06   A Star Walk on the Wild Side

Wild specialise in distributing tomorrow’s hits today - to DJ’s, Skate Shops and Entertainment Managers and finding out what these trendsetters think of the music. Currently the DJ’s have to complete a response form for each CD and post it back to Wild. Wild then have to transcribe the information, collate it and produce a report which is then sent to the Record Companies.

A Star Software together with 4G Technology has designed a online / offline database where the DJ’s will put their reactions on an online form.

Using ODBC and mySQL, the data is transferred instantly to an Access Database which automatically produces summary reports on the DJ’s reactions. The system is now live and has had a very positive response from DJ’s and other users. ‘This system will save time and hours of copy typing’ says David Barclay, MD of Wild.