Description: To improve the efficiency of a national retail optical company's system for sales ordering, tracking, distribution and fulfillment. Business processes included: customer order entry, order status, pricing, dispensing goods, customer payments, store inventory management, refunds, store accounts receivable management, close-out routines, commissions and reporting.

Business Benefits:

• Total annual first-year savings estimated at $2,667,000
• Return on investment estimated at seven months
• Recurring annual savings averaging $1,990,000
• President quoted as saying: "The amount of information and opportunity you (Artech) identified over these past weeks would have taken us a year."

Technical Architecture:

• Focus on scalable, flexible and business driven
• A multi-tier web application providing and online solution
• Internet server - Microsoft IIS and ASP providing the user interface
• Application/transaction server - Microsoft DCOM and MTS
• Central database server - Microsoft SQL server
• External systems interfaces - components managing data sharing