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"We are very pleased with Waterstone's work. They were able to quickly understand our complex business and deliver a system that shields the user from that complexity." - Supervisor, Major Heavy Equipment Manufacturer

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This major heavy equipment manufacturer is the world's leading manufacturer of powerful earthmovers, mining trucks and other heavy equipment. Their Dealer Channel Systems group creates the systems that help their dealers and customers keep these multi-million dollar investments up and running.
Executive Summary

Business Strategy

The largely industrial use of their equipment creates a lucrative market for parts and service. To increase their share of this market, the company promises its clients fast lead times, delivering of parts within twenty-four hours, and minimal machine downtime through maintenance plans backed by quality their parts and service. To deliver on these promises, they needed enhanced capabilities for parts ordering and tracking, repair scheduling, and contract pricing and management. This company looked to Waterstone Consulting to develop the solution.

Technology Strategy

Waterstone Consulting's customer management expertise helped this company identify the key initiatives that would enable its business strategy:

• Remote parts ordering from the field to reduce lead times and stock outs
• Improved accuracy in contract management and pricing
• Enhanced scheduling and tracking capabilities for preventative maintenance and repairs

To deliver on these initiatives, Waterstone Consulting developed a comprehensive maintenance management system for the field service technicians that tracks maintenance histories, conducts elaborate pricing calculations, analyzes costs and helps with repair scheduling. This complex, yet easy-to-use system was designed using object-oriented Visual C++ to provide maximum flexibility while reducing development times and cost.

To facilitate the purchase of Caterpillar parts and service from remote locations, Waterstone Consulting provided users with dial-up access into the dealers AS/400 systems. This link made it simple for Caterpillar customers to check parts availability and to place orders at Cat dealers. Waterstone Consulting designed a standard Windows user interface for the new system to ensure fast ramp-up time for their global customer base.

Project Approach

Using a Joint Application Development (JAD) approach, Waterstone Consulting partnered with the experts of this company to ensure full understanding of the complex rules governing their maintenance schedules and contract pricing. The project team gained critical input by developing and testing a prototype system with users in several dealer locations before the system was rolled out worldwide.

Project Success

This company realized immediate benefits from its new customer management system. The company can not only deliver improved service to its dealer network and end-customers, but can also better market its profitable maintenance contracts now that it has the ability to accurately demonstrate the true cost of ownership over the life of the equipment. The result: tangible increases in productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Industry:	Benefits:
Manufacturing	Reduced order lead time Improved contract management Tightened dealer-to-customer ties
Solution:	Technology:
Field Force Automation Pricing & Contract Management	Microsoft Windows Microsoft Visual C++, OLE, IBM AS/400