American Engineering Testing (AET) is an employee-owned corporation providing geotechnical, environmental, materials and forensics consulting and testing services to public and private sector clients in a broad spectrum of industries.

 

They have built their reputation on experience, quality, and fulfilling client requirements. Many of their engineers and certified technicians, including principals who are actively involved in project management, have decades of practical experience in their areas of specialization. They also have access to an extraordinary accumulation of site data and construction history in the Upper Midwest, which proves useful as well as cost- and time-efficient on many projects.

 

AET was using their line of business application for project management and the preparation of related service orders. The system was too complicated and there were too many steps to the process. Much of the information was handwritten to be entered later, which caused frequent errors and inaccuracies. The inaccuracies, along with partial jobs without service orders, were causing extra staff time to track down and correct the information.

 

Bob Schlick, IT Specialist and Marsha Hadd, Accounting Supervisor met with Solbrekk Sr. Network Engineer Chad Brinkman and Sr. Account Executive JoAnn Evans in early 2007. Solbrekk proposed a solution utilizing SharePoint portal server. The project managers all go to the SharePoint portal and enter the data into InfoPath form services using forms created by Chad and Bob. The line of business application did not have a SQL back-end database so that the data could easily be exported from SharePoint into the line of business application. Chad wrote an application to import the data into an Access database, organize the data, and then import it into the line of business application. This is done twice per day, and can also be done on demand.

 

AET has 11 locations using the SharePoint portal for project management and service orders. The 10 remote locations connect via the Internet using their web browser. The branch office can now prepare their service orders and transmit them to the SharePoint portal. The information is now typed instead of handwritten, there are fewer steps, and the accuracy has been greatly improved. The solution was designed for the project managers, as opposed to other applications, which required them to adjust to the application.

 

Marsha said, “During the planning and implementation of the project we learned the importance of staying focused instead of trying to do too much. We had identified a problem that we needed to solve, and once we maintained our focus, we were able to solve that problem very effectively. Once that was done we were ready to move on to the next priority, which was marketing and sales leads and opportunities.”

 

Bob said, “SharePoint was initially more expensive than the stand-alone applications AET reviewed, but SharePoint can do so much more than the other applications. The SharePoint solution has proven to be very cost effective. We also discovered that we now need fewer licenses for the line of business application, which saved us over $20,000 in hard dollar license costs plus the related annual maintenance and support cost.”

 

Marsha said, “Another significant benefit of this project is that employees can see what other departments and employees in the company are doing. For example when one of our departments completes a project, marketing can uncover opportunities for other departments. It also facilitates communication between teams, like accounting and marketing, for example.”

 

Bob concluded by saying, “Solbrekk was great at knowledge sharing and training. They empowered us to become more self-sufficient. I was able to do much of Phase II of the project on my own, with some assistance from Chad. Now we are ready for some more heavy lifting, so we have scheduled a meeting with Chad, JoAnn and Mike Goddard to develop and implement a plan for the next phase. I would recommend Chad to anyone. Paying for Chad to do the knowledge sharing and training was well worth the money.”