ERP system "Sprut" Case

Sprut is ERP software for the business digitalization of Right Course Group, the furniture broker, located in Belarus and China. This is the web-based application with an iOS application (the last one is actually a web browser UI element inside the app) and terminal which displays information about the clients.

Initially, the product should have been solved one particular problem: create a database with a catalog of products to use for another project. Also, it should solve the problem of communication. Sales managers are located in Belarus, they communicate with the client and they should have most recent status about ordered products. Information was stored in Excel tables on computers of Chinese workers who are responsible for communication with factories, so it took time to send the files. So, the first iteration included functionality with the list of clients, some basic information about them, and the list of products.

Such as system should be used as by employees in Belarus, as by employees in Mainland China, we had to find the best suitable solution. Developing the system with synchronized servers in two locations would make extra costs as for small application. It was located on servers in Hong Kong, because it is the location that is not slowed down by the Great Firewall of China as for Mainland China, as for the external world.

The first iteration was finished in 2 months. However, adding products to the app took extra time for managers, because they used Excel tables for each client because of the complexity of business processes of communication with factories/vendors. So, following the next 3 years, we developed and step by step integrated Sprut into business processes.

Among the features of the system are: lists of clients with their statuses (there are 25 statuses of interaction like furniture is manufacturing, should be inspected QA manager, all products are inspected, all products are on the warehouse, waiting for loading to a container, etc), modules for working with products, working with invoices, documents of the client, working with vendors/factories, printing products reports for internal usage or reports for clients, generating financial reports, printing stickers for the boxes and reading the barcodes, containers dashboard, interface for a terminal in the office which displays the list of clients with their statuses, tracking the activity of users, controlling access, a module of a calendar of client tours and others.

Provided here screenshots are from the development version of the product.

Technologies

Back end: PHP (with yii2 framework), MySQL.
Front end: JavaScript, jQuery, Swift.
Server: nginx.
Other: Selenium ( Java).

My role

I have been working as a full-stack developer on the project, built the app architecture and design system components, made back end, front end, system administration. Implemented auto-deployment process.

I made business analytics: described and structured the processes, wrote a specification for the ERP system. During the development updated UI design following layouts (we had one major and one minor redesign) and improved UX of the interface following learned mechanics of how employees use the software.

I optimized some of the business processes using the created ERP system, integrated it into business, organized cooperation between Belarus and Chinese offices in the new system.

Implemented workflows for ancillary works such as translation (software had multi-language interface) or production of the introduction video lessons.

Modules

Clients List

Available in 2 views:

Order Page

Calendar

Containers list

History

All actions in the system are recording (like editing, renaming, adding new parameters, translating, etc) and could be displayed for the top managers by clients, by managers, or by specific product.

Cases of business processes optimization

Control by stickers with barcodes

Stages of the clients

During the implementation of the Sprut system was created the concept of tracking the stages of the clients, so it could be easier to track what number of clients are on what stage.

From Excel to ERP

Clients' products were tracked in Excel files before. It made problems when managers exchange the information. After Sprut implementation, all employees could see the latest data.

Terminal with clients

Before:

After:

Multi-language

The system is available in 3 languages: English, Russian and Chinese.