Impala Citrus Case Study
A software solution to super-charge production
Introducing Impala Citrus
Impala Citrus operates as a middleman between producers and clients worldwide. Their primary focus is citrus and stone fruit. They handle all the marketing and business negotiations with the clients and then consolidate everything in a “packing instruction” form for the producers.
Impala saves the producer the effort of getting clients, negotiating prices and transporting the product. Once the producers accept the prices and markets for the product they follow the instructions provided by Impala to complete the orders. It is Impala’s responsibility to make sure that the product sells for the price negotiated.
Impala needed a new automated system for their order forms that would ensure fewer mistakes and that would free them up to focus on customer relations and product investigation. Vulcan Labs provided Impala Citrus with a new bespoke system, tailored to maximise their needs and to make sure they can continue to provide quality service to their clients.
Timeline
12 months
Keeping the old system running throughout implementation
Impala Citrus used Microsoft Office products to generate their “packing instructions” and quality insurance documentation. Most of the work performed at the initial engagement was outside the system. They also used another system to manage the allocation, invoicing and consolidation.
Producers sent their pallet barcodes and these were received, kept track of and got updates at certain intervals during the transport and delivery process. With this information, they would do their administration and finances.
The problem with the old system was that they spent too much time on administrative tasks, and because everything was manually added to the spreadsheets, human errors crept in time and again. Only half of the current system was being utilized as it was not specifically written for their industry.
Impala Citrus needed a new automated system that will save them time on administrative tasks so that they can focus on customer relations and product investigation. This bespoke system should also allow them to maintain their current workflow. The new system also needed to be easy when new employees had to be trained.
We also had to keep the old system running in the background while we were implementing the new system with new features to keep production running. Both systems needed to share data and run concurrently. Switching between systems should remain possible throughout.
Taking an agile approach to building new systems
We decided to approach the problem space in a more agile way. We wanted Impala Citrus to understand our development process and be part of it as we found potential solutions to the problem space. We started by taking a single function, the “Packing Instruction form”, and developing a usable solution.
After that we tackled the old system and followed a step-by-step process:
Step 1
The integration between the old system and our application needed to be done on a database level and we were able to do it in real-time without any delay or transport of data via an external process. They needed to use both systems without any interruption.
Step 2
We created an ordering application to replace the current Excel system, with brand new flows and interaction within our application.
Step 3
Started managing the maintenance of the master listings in our application.
Step 4
Took features one at a time and re-imagined the functionality that would otherwise not be possible in the old system.
With every step of the way, all the new features were integrated back into the old system. This allowed us to systematically replace features without losing functionality that we have not yet replaced.
A new system that saves time and partners with Impala Citrus to produce higher quality work
We have been an integral part of their business for more than 2 years.
We were able to remove most of the capture faults by creating a single point of capture.
Every new feature and addition on our side have saved them countless hours per day. While they are still capturing and processing the same data we have removed almost all work duplication and have streamlined the process into single succinct units of work. Some of the staff have gone from a week&s workload to a couple of hours.