Strategy
BravePoint Expertise in QAD MFG/PRO
Strength
and Project Management
Ensures
Stability
Two-Version Upgrade Runs Smoothly
Rehrig-United, manufacturer of shopping carts, hand baskets, and specialty carts for over half of the
top fifty retailers in the United States, helps their customers select and customize carts or baskets that
reflect their company’s brand and image.
Rehrig-United (www.rehrig.com, formerly Rehrig International) was using QAD Enterprise
I enjoy working
with BravePoint
because I know
I’m getting a
well-trained
person, one
who works well
with others.
Applications v9.0. Although the ERP system worked well for them, management was aware that support
would eventually end for the older version. In addition, Rehrig-United was eager to take advantage of the
newer features, such as the ability to send emails from QAD.
Shelton King, Information Technology Manager at Rehrig-United for the past ten years, was already
familiar with BravePoint because Rehrig-United uses BravePoint’s Automation Deletion Utility to help
maintain their QAD MGF/PRO database. He had also attended enough User Group conferences to
recognize BravePoint as a frequent participant and QAD expert. Even though King put the upgrade project
up for bid as part of his standard procedure, his familiarity with BravePoint made them an easy choice.
King says, “I enjoy working with BravePoint because I know I’m getting a well-trained person, one who
Shelton King
Information Technology
works well with others.”
For this engagement, Rehrig-United made a two-version jump from version 9.0 to eB2.1 and
Manager
Rehrig-United
upgraded their Configurator module. A project management lead from BravePoint ensured that the
upgrade ran smoothly. Scheduled over a ten-week period, BravePoint and Rehrig-United completed the
upgrade on schedule.
King says, “One of BravePoint’s strengths is their relationship with QAD. They have partnered with
QAD for many years, so they not only understand QAD software, but are very familiar with the
organization and its corporate culture.”
King also appreciates the knowledge he and other Rehrig-United employees gained from the postimplementation training. “It provided an opportunity for people here to learn things about the QAD
software that they didn’t know,” says King. “Doing the same thing every day, you tend to get stuck in a
rut until someone shows you that there are different ways to do things.”
Even two years later, Rehrig-United is reaping the benefits of the successful upgrade. King says that
it’s common for people who were heavily involved with the project to stop him in the hallway with ideas
to improve the software functionality and suggest that they “give BravePoint a call.”
“The five years that I’ve worked with BravePoint, we’ve had a good working relationship,” relates King.
“Whether we have something that’s urgent, or a long-term project, BravePoint is always there for me.”
5000 Peachtree Ind. Blvd., Suite 100
Norcross, GA 30071
www.bravepoint.com
888-874-1880
Strategy
BravePoint Investigates
Strength
Sluggish Progress Database
Stability
to Reduce Unnecessary Disk Reads
and Improve Application Speed
Founded by veteran healthcare executives in October 2005, Brentwood, Tennessee-based Renal
Advantage acquired 73 dialysis centers and grew rapidly to become the fourth largest provider of
outpatient dialysis services in the United States. As part of that acquisition, RAI inherited a custom
Progress v9 based application that brought with it some end user complaints. Although pleased with the
Everyone seems to
functionality of the software, “it was slow, and we were definitely feeling the pain,” says Steve Duke,
be extremely
Director of Operations at RAI.
knowledgeable
RAI turned to BravePoint because, although the vendor that created the software excelled in creating
Progress applications, they lacked the tuning expertise needed to trouble-shoot the Progress installation.
about Progress.
Duke says, “We talked to other Progress consulting companies, and based on those conversations, we
They’re thorough,
could tell BravePoint’s difference in knowledge compared to other vendors. You can tell when someone
detailed, and they
really knows what they’re talking about.”
communicate well.
The Progress configuration used by RAI’s customized application was central to day-to-day
They don’t run the
operations for all of the dialysis centers. The shared database stored doctor’s orders, patient medications,
bill up, which is
and patient’s vital signs during their visit. “Each patient is there about four hours having their blood
nice. If they
pumped out of their body, cleaned, and pumped back in,” reports Duke. “That’s a lot of information we
worked an hour-
have to record.”
Duke continues, “We first brought in BravePoint to validate some of the problems that we thought we
and-a-half, that’s
were seeing with the application,” with the primary goal to improve the application’s speed. However, the
what you pay
relationship between the two companies quickly blossomed into more when Progress expert Dan
them. They’re
Foreman from BravePoint scrutinized the Progress installation.
efficient and
Foreman used BravePoint software utilities to uncover a variety of issues. After generating and
trustworthy. It’s
analyzing a 65-page performance review, they were surprised about how many opportunities were
a very good
available to improve the database performance. Duke was pleased with the level of detail the report
relationship.
contained. “We fixed the most obvious problems quickly, and within the first month the application
showed an enormous increase in speed – just from doing those few things.”
“We’ve reduced the number of wasted reads and writes to the database, which has enhanced the
Steve Duke
speed of our end users,” says Duke. “We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from them.”
Director of Operations
Renal Advantage
Before working with BravePoint, the number of database disk reads every 15 minutes was in the
three thousands. Now the number of disk reads every 15 minutes is in the three hundreds – a ten-fold
reduction. Because RAI is still working with BravePoint on issues gleaned from the report, further speed
improvements are expected.
“There’s no doubt,” says Duke. “From now on, anything we do with Progress, BravePoint is going to
be involved.”
5000 Peachtree Ind. Blvd., Suite 100
Norcross, GA 30071
www.bravepoint.com
888-874-1880