Project in Brief

CSSI rewrote a severely outdated legacy software application used by a manufacturing company to track BOMs (bills of material) and cost data, modernizing from VB6 to .NET.

Customer’s Challenge:

Our customer is an industrial manufacturing company. Years ago, the company created a solution which used VB6 and a Microsoft Access database to track and report on critical cost data for its many products. Each record includes a BOM and planned costs for material, labor, and overhead. This data could be pulled out in report form for cost and variance analysis, and is thus critical to allow the firm to understand its production costs. The customer came to CSSI with several challenges.

First, an old version of MS Access was being run on an obsolete server, and the team had been unsuccessful in efforts to move that software to a modern computer – this created the possibility of computer failure shutting down the program. Second, the software component had been written by a mix of consultants and ex-employees, all of whom had long ago left the firm. Thus, there was no internal knowledge base on how the software worked or how to update it.

CSSI’s Solution:

CSSI reviewed the customer’s current state, and proposed a 3-stage process. The customer agreed to stages 1 and 2 immediately, with stage 3 to come at a later date:

Stage 1: CSSI created a test environment, and used that to test running update utilities on the outdated Access database. The software was far enough out of date that it was necessary to perform the upgrade in multiple jumps. Having vetted the upgrade, we were then able to upgrade to a current version of Access, allowing the customer to move to a new server. This reduced the risk of hardware failure.

Stage 2: CSSI mapped out functionality of the VB6 application, and rewrote this program in .NET. This created a future runway for the program, and also finally enabled the customer to make desired modifications.

Stage 3: (Future) CSSI has recommended migrating away from the Access platform, moving instead to a more robust and modern database such as SQL. This will resolve challenges associated with multiple users, and will also allow access via web browser instead of the current local-only usage.

We recognize that many companies have legacy workflows which were implemented in Microsoft Access. As companies have grown, they have encountered some of the limitations of Access. We have often encountered companies seeking migration or software rewrites to escape a legacy software deadend.

In summary, CSSI’s solution included:

• Consulting
• Microsoft Access upgrade and migration
• Custom software development: Rewriting a VB6 application in .NET
• Proposed future step: Creating a SQL solution to replace Microsoft Access.

Interested in Custom Programming?

Are you interested in exploring how CSSI can help you by modernizing legacy or outdated software used in your business? Contact the development team at CSSI to discuss your project.