Mined in Egypt, Australia, Brazil, Ireland and Mexico, salt begins the annual trek from exotic destinations to its final resting place on the roads and highways in the Northeastern US. Boston’s winter is coming! From tankers to trains from trucks to terminals, mounds are piled and housed along our roads and highways waiting for the spreaders to keep them navigable as millions brave their winter commutes. EPIC managed a technology upgrade from legacy to cutting edge Microsoft technologies to manage logistics electronically. Client: Mined in Egypt, Australia, Brazil Ireland and Mexico, salt begins the annual trek from exotic destinations to its final resting place on the roads and highways in the Northeastern US. Boston, winter is coming! From tankers to trains from trucks to terminals, mounds are piled and housed along our roads and highways waiting for the spreaders to keep them navigable as millions brave their winter commutes.
Industry: While salt is plentiful on both land and sea, prices fluctuate wildly based upon supply and demand. Municipalities study the Farmer’s Almanac and predict, based on scientific measures of course, how much salt they will need for the winter. Contracts are negotiated and suppliers are to be on the ready for the next deluge of frozen precipitation from above. When the storm hits, a flurry of trucks load up, get weighed, spread the salt on their route. Load, weigh, spread and repeat…..then the spring comes.
Challenge: The winter is over, but the salt logistics system, written in Microsoft legacy code, needs a facelift. Technology has enabled efficiencies with advances in scales, scanners and other logistics equipment. To keep up with the competition, new tech needs to be integrated and it all needs to be done before the next winter season. That means a complete tech upgrade, code re-written, new features added, and the system tested and distributed to the terminal and personnel trained to use.
Solution: A Boston based Technology company partnered with EPIC Software Development to create the next generation of the Regional Salt Logistics Software platform which consisted of both hardware, software and cloud technologies. Our partner created the specifications including required new features and existing features necessary and performed Project Management and Customer Interface. EPIC designed the architecture performed the software engineering.
Platform / Technologies:
- Xceed WPF Framework Entity Framework .NET Framework 4.5
- MS SQL Server Caliburn Micro NLog
- ToggleSwitch Control ReportViewer
Resources & Methodology: Agile/SCRUM, Daily Standups
- 1 – .Architect
- 2 – .NET Developers
Two-Week Sprints
- 1 –Business Analyst
- 1 – QA Engineer
Results: Our partner and EPIC completed the project on-time and on-budget. New technologies were integrated including Microsoft, Cloud and EPIC has been retained for new features and product maintenance.