Testimonial
Synopsis
Mitsubishi contacted demonz media with some very specific ideas aimed at the development of a software application for their company.
Mitsubishi required an application that could help designing proposals based on their KX series of air conditioners. An air condition system usually contains a KX outdoor unit, a number of KX indoor units plus some accessories such as remote controls, PDF kits & DIS kits. These elements are all interconnected according to complex rules. The application was developed to help the user with the design of industrial size air conditioning systems and ensure that the connection logic between all elements are valid. In addition, the application checks to make sure that all technical requirements for the system are met and generates a PDF proposal based on the systems designed.
In addition to this, Mitsubishi required an administration utility that could keep track of all their models in the KX series and also track user profiles, their projects and systems. Only user's that have been approved by Mitsubishi should be able to use the program. Administrators should also have the ability to add, delete or modify details of models, projects, systems or users when required.
Mitsubishi also requested a reporting tool to provide important statistical information. This information will be used by the Mitsubishi's sales and marketing team for strategic and logistical planning.
brief
- > manage air condition projects & systems
- > create proposals (PDF) based on projects
- > create piping & wiring diagrams for systems within projects
- > check piping & wiring logic of systems generated
- > generate statistical reports based on all projects
- > export reports to Ms Excel for further analysis
- > login system & user profiles for general users & administrators
- > manage data of all air condition models
- > keep all data remotely and make updates if necessary
- > able to update the program and add additional functinality at later stages
- > easy-to-use intuitive interface
- > help manual detailing all the functionalities of the program
solution
This project required all of demonz media's technical abilities. As all data such as models, projects, systems, user profiles, reports were to be stored remotely; the best solution was Microsoft's Smartclient model for application development. This not only allowed us to keep all data on a remote server, we also had the ability to release updates to the entire program to add additional functions at a later stage.
Using the smartclient application model also means that users get a very rich user interface. Since most of the target users were using Ms Windows XP machines, we decided to create a program with a XP-style user interface that is incredibly user friendly.
One of the main components of the user interface is the drawing surface. Users can drag & drop KX models & accessories onto the drawing surface and connect them easily like in many familiar drawing applications. The application is intelligent enough to check if all technical logic rules are met while the user is drawing/designing/connecting the elements of a system. When required, XP style ballons will provide helpful hints, warning messages and error messages to guide the user in designing the system.
Once a valid system is created, the application will be able to create the required piping and wiring diagrams, technical specifications, material lists required to build the system and create a proposal that can be saved in PDF format.
For managing models, projects, systems & user profiles, we created an administration section which can only be accessed if an administrator logs in. There are three levels of access: general user, reporting user & administration user. General users do not have access to reporting data. Report users have access to reporting data but cannot modify models, projects etc. Administrators have access to all the data.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are very happy with the end product. They are planning to distribute the application worldwide & and translate the program into other languages.