Today we have an Enterprise Article entry from that hotbed of Delphi developers, Brazil. Landerson Gomes takes us through how the strong cross platform development capabilities of RAD Studio with Delphi allowed him to help a drug distribution company streamline its processes and overcome challenges across multiple industries.
Table of Contents
How did it all begin?
I’ve always been closely following everything that happens in the Delphi universe. Since my college graduation in 2003. In 2010 I moved to the city of Pimenta/MG, where I went to work in a medicine distribution company. Around 2012 I realized that I could help the company by creating some solutions in Delphi to cover some “holes” left between the current ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) and daily activities. In 2014, we attended a meeting of a chain of pharmacies that were our customers, in the city of Formiga/MG. Although the meeting was commercial, we decided to participate closely to see how the IT sector could be useful and generate solutions that could facilitate and strengthen relationships with these customers.
Our company’s commercial manager presented a project in partnership with the drug industries and at the end he said that for customers to monitor the results, they would receive reports with these results and awards. As a technology professional, it hurt me to see that having technology available, it didn’t make sense to have the work of generating reports and sending them to each of these clients. I then suggested using a website where the customer could log in and be able to check their results and scores online. Everyone looked at me like I was a god! I remember well, it was a Saturday and we went out to the restaurant, celebrated the positive impact of the meeting and headed home. Then came Monday, in the afternoon the commercial manager asked me which site he should inform because he already had a customer wanting to consult (I believe this has never happened to anyone in the IT area, lol). I explained that a site takes time to plan, build and put it on the air… when pressed, I said that I knew a tool and would try something because I already knew the rules of the partnership and the award. I entered the Embarcadero website and downloaded Delphi, at the time the Delphi XE7 trial… I created a project using Atozed Intraweb (IW) and built a website, directly querying the ERP database to have the list of customers and their data of sales which would generate the score for the award. On Tuesday morning, I asked our marketing team to test and come up with a visual identity for the site. On Wednesday, after the tests, we made the adjustments… the version of IW that came with the trial didn’t have a fixed connection port, so I went to the board, and requested the purchase of the Delphi version and thus began the history of Delphi within the Distributor.
Why did the company end up with Delphi almost everywhere?
From that moment on, Delphi became part of the company’s process simplification routine. Several solutions were created, transforming the routines of different sectors of the company into more productive ones and user interactions with the ERP less tiring and automated by routines developed in Delphi. In the same period, the company was undergoing a change in its distribution center (DC), which now also has a WMS system (Warehouse Management System). I created a system in Delphi capable of providing integration between ERP and WMS making information travel between different database mechanisms. The ERP used MS SQLServer, the WMS used ORACLE, and Delphi with the very powerful FireDAC gave us the possibility of reading information between these two worlds in a transparent way. There was also an electronic ordering system and another one for automating the sales force that also interacted with the ERP. I used Delphi to create applications that made it possible to monitor and manage these systems so that the company could determine and “predict” the amount of effort needed to complete those orders within the time expected by the logistical process.
Things gradually became natural, and generating Delphi solutions became part of my DNA and the company’s process of reducing bureaucracy and super productivity.
What were the commercial impacts?
In all internal sectors, it was noticeable that work burdened us less. Externally, efficiency began to be noticed by customers and suppliers. I participated in some meetings with our commercial sector so that I could generate results follow-up solutions for both our management team and suppliers. These, by the way, when they realized, for example, the possibility of monitoring stock positions in real time, for example, they were ecstatic. I created Datasnap REST servers that made it possible to access data anywhere in the country.
In other words, our suppliers, often working in other states, were able to collect information instantly to present at their conventions, to their directors, etc.
The power of the tool that they never knew the name of, but which I am sure changed the way they worked, reached them.
What part did availability and innovation play?
But Delphi allowed me more… I decided to create a tool that would be with me at all times and that would allow me to participate and control the company’s routines in the palm of my hand. Delphi XE7 already provided a solid platform for developing solutions for mobile devices.
So I decided to create an Android App capable of interacting with all the company’s systems in addition to the facilities available on the Android platform such as interaction with Phone dialing directly from the screen, GPS, Maps, Barcode reading, etc.
Another solution was also created in which it was possible to exclusively manage the integration with WMS x ERP.
Thus, in the palm of our hands, the entire internal production process of the company was available. Information that was of paramount importance so that the medicines that were separated and transported at the distributor arrived faster, more effectively and efficiently at pharmacies and, consequently, at the homes of several families in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil.
Anyway, Delphi helped build part of this story.
Would you like to see more in a video?
I covered this topic in Code Rage BR in 2018 and the prints you saw throughout this post refer to this video, when I was already using Delphi 10.2 Tokyo.
Here’s a link to the video:
I hope you enjoyed this story lived by me. I’m Landerson Gomes, I’m a systems analyst, and an Embarcadero MVP.
This article was submitted as part of our Enterprise Article Showcase. If you have a success story to tell about a project which makes use of RAD Studio with Delphi or C++ Builder, or any of our other great enterprise products please get in touch. Read all about it here: Enterprise Article Showcase