LG Electronics New Application Design Case Study
Case Study
Client
LG Electronics (LGE) Commercial Air Conditioning (CAC) division is based out of the United States and supports the sales, training and operations of LGE’s commercial and residential air conditioning products. LGE CAC has seen considerable growth in the last few years and to support the increased customer order management needs as well as internal forecasting efforts, LGE created an online portal called Sales & Operations Planning Site (SOPS).
Business Goals
The LGE SOPS portal is critical to the management of commercial orders by Sales Reps and internal LGE staff. Orders, also referred to as “Projects,” have long lead times and play a significant role in demand forecasting for manufacturing efforts.
LGE CAC selected us to enhance the functional elements of the existing SOPS architecture, to overcome current system limitations, and to provide additional sophistication to meet the demands of the growing business and customer needs.
Business Challenges
One of the greatest challenges of the implementation was integrating SOPS 2.0 with LG Electronics’ ERP in Korea. We worked with LGE Head Quarters (LGE HQ) in Korea to learn the ERP requirements so that SOPS could provide the ERP with the data it needed in the correct way. As SOPS functionality changed, consideration for any impact on the ERP integration needed to be taken into account.
Enhancements include implementing a technical product data management module, sales data sheet generation, as well as projects outside of SOPS such as a tablet app for tradeshow and field use.
Solution
The project started out as a transition and support effort but then grew into a re-design and re-build of SOPS. We initially carried out a code transition of SOPS 1.0 to our development environment to ensure we could modify, build and deploy changes to the SOPS application. Once complete, the transitioned application allowed us to learn the SOPS 1.0 functionality, business rules, and underlying code while conducting collaborative requirements gathering and design sessions with LGE.
The Solution Architecture team synthesized all the information provided into a new application design. The design was documented through screen mock-ups known as wireframes that were clickable to illustrate system navigation and had annotations to describe system behavior. Following design reviews, modifications were made and the system was implemented in a truly agile fashion. The application underwent an accelerated delivery schedule and accommodated LGE’s new requirements and changing priorities for go-live functionality.
“Everybody that I’ve worked with at SOLTECH comes up with things that I never thought about. You were super easy to work with. You compliment us very well. Our customers were very pleased.” – Freida Keeter
Impact
SOPS 2.0 was built with a focus on supporting LGE CAC’s continual growth. The application was designed to more accurately track the sales process, provide a more enjoyable and efficient user experience, and incorporated both commercial project sales and adhoc distributor orders into the functionality. The project was a success, and the change was welcomed by LGE’s internal team and sales reps. LGE’s sales reps were trained on the application after the launch. We have continued a partnership with LGE for further enhancements to the SOPS 2.0 application.
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