Phillips Fastener Products has a rich tradition of innovation. In 1935, Henry F. Phillips purchased the rights to the original cruciform drive screw.  Amid skeptics, Phillips marketed the cleverly designed screw until it was finally adopted by General Motors in the production of its 1937 Cadillac. By then, it had become known as the “Phillips Screw.”

Phillips Fastener, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts is a  division of Phillips Screw Company. The division was organized solely to serve its two main clients, Home Depot and Lowes Home Improvement Stores. Because of the geographic stretch of the retailers, Phillips employs nine field representatives spread out nationwide. Each field representative visits on average five or six stores per day, conducting onsite merchandising surveys. The information, both qualitative and quantitative, provides critical feedback to company’s headquarters about how Phillips inventory is being displayed in each location.

Each merchandising store visit required the completion of a three-page paper form,  as well as taking on-site photographs with a standard camera. At the end of the business week, each Field Representative would return to his or her home base, and use the weekend or early part of the following week to develop the photographs and photocopy the Site Surveys. They would also complete a separate site visit report – a detailed summary of their weeks activities – which required an additional 2-3 hours of office time. This packet would be sent via overnight mail to the main office, normally arriving the Monday or Tuesday of the following week.

Back at the main office, a full time staff member would compile the information, and hand key it into an Microsoft Access database. Depending on work load, the data entry process would require at least an additional week. Once the data entry was completed, the final reports could be generated.

“In this type of business, time is of the essence,” said Carl Chasse, Chief Operating Officer at Phillips Fastener. “Our ability to act on an issue is in great part a function of how timely we receive the information. By the time we were able to complete the data entry process and actually examine the information, nearly two weeks would have passed.”

Phillips went through a lengthy process to find an automation solution. Lowes and Home Depot each sold their own type of software system to its vendors (an ASP model, fixed yearly fee). Although fairly comprehensive, neither of them addressed all of Phillips’ core data criteria.

“We weren’t willing to adjust the way we do business to suit the software,” said Chasse. “Many of the critical metrics that we were looking for weren’t available with the systems that we found, so we looked into a custom application solution.”

Phillips asked Applied Software Technologies to propose a solution that would meet both their data needs, while at the same time automate the process. “Right away, they had a clear sense of what we were looking for,” Chasse added.

After thorough discussions with Phillips on their business logic, strategy, and overall technology requirements, Applied Software Technologies designed a new Call Report Program based on the core features of Phillips’ existing system. Using SQL Server database technology, the Visual Basic application was mobile enabled based on Microsoft .NET framework. Data synchronization would be performed via SQL Server Replication – on demand transmission over any Internet connection. Fujitsu Sub-Notebooks, running Microsoft WindowsXP and SQL MSDE were chosen for their outstanding mobile performance, appropriate screen size, and extended battery life.

In the field, representatives use a stylus to quickly touch screen answers to electronic forms, many of which are check boxes. A web cam, rather than the standard camera is used, and images are fed directly into the application. Data can be transmitted to Phillips’ headquarters within minutes using any available Internet connection. In addition, a series of two hard copy summary reports, which formerly took on average 3 hours to complete are now auto-generated (one into Microsoft Excel and the other into Word) using data input throughout the course of the week.