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Aspire began working with Hunter Bay Coffee Roasters
in June of 2013 at the request of owner, Rob Young.
Rob was a new owner for the business and was
interested in growth and improving the management of
Coffee production. At the time, Rob requested that
Aspire build a version of CoffeeRoaster with the
ability to connect to QuickBooks Online. This had
not been done before, as CoffeeRoaster was
originally designed to connect to an ODBC database
and began production with QuickBooks in early 2009
on local, desktop versions of QuickBooks. An
agreement was reached between Aspire and Hunter Bay
to do a pilot project with the aim of deploying
CoffeeRoaster successfully.
It took time to re-develop CoffeeRoaster into a
product that would be able to connect to its data
source over the internet, a less reliable connection
than a local Hard Drive or Networked File Share. At
the time this development was finishing up unbeknown
to us, QuickBooks was in the process of obsoleting
the QuickBooks Online product and replacing it with
a newer, improved product. A few months before
QuickBooks replaced their current QuickBooks online
product Aspire was able to successfully connect
CoffeeRoaster to an internet based data source
(QuickBooks Online) and import Sales data for the
purpose of running a Coffee Roasting, Bagging and
Inventory application. At the time, it was
uncertain whether a third party tool used to connect
to QuickBooks data over the internet was going to be
available in the future to connect to the new
QuickBooks Online product and the decision was made
to convert to a local QuickBooks product.
There were many challenges shared by Aspire and
Hunter Bay in moving forward in the deployment of
CoffeeRoaster. There was a need to build a
'business network' as opposed to a 'home network' so
that Windows could provide the necessary
capabilities to run CoffeeRoaster properly. There
was also a need for End User training and we have
learned how to get better at that. The many
challenges along the way were met by teamwork and
working to solve the issues and move forward rather
than getting sidetracked by the challenges. People
learned new ways of doing things that led to better
ways of managing Coffee production. This is the
path of successful businesses. There was also a
company culture in transition and this creates its
own set of challenges for long term employees who
are now asked to adapt to change. Again, the
ability to adapt to change for the purposes of
improving the business is critical to moving forward
both for businesses and employees.
With the CoffeeRoaster software product, it is
critical to maintain properly configured data. With
proper configuration and proper data entry
CoffeeRoaster produces excellent results. If
configuration or data entry are off, the results are
less predictable. Over time, we were able to train
the right individual to manage the configuration
data and maintain data entry, Levi Chagnon.
We are not done yet, we will continue to learn how
to get better - that is the way forward for a
successful businesses. Today, we are beyond the
challenges of deploying CoffeeRoaster and in a
position to reap its benefits. The information
below comes from Levi describing how he sees the
impact of CoffeeRoaster on the Hunter Bay Coffee
Roasting business.
At Hunter Bay Coffee Roasters the following
CoffeeRoaster Modules are deployed.
1) Production Module
2) Management Module
3) Green Bean Module
4) Roaster Module (Pre Roast Blend Model)
Since 2016 there have been changes to the crew at
Hunter Bay with two changes in the Operations
Manager and a change in the Roaster. In
addition, a second location has been added with a
single QuickBooks Company file managing orders for
both locations and both Roasteries. As of
March 2018, Aspire has been involved in a testing
phase to verify the ability for new changes in
CoffeeRoaster to separate imported coffees for
production based on location. Preliminary
testing has been satisfactory, final testing is
expected to occur in April - May 2018.
March 30, 2016
We have been using the CoffeeRoaster program from
Aspire to manage our production materials and order
fulfillment systems over the last three years. I
have been very happy with the programs ability to
make data easily accessible and streamline
operations.
The program does many valuable things for us
including helping us monitoring our production
volumes, managing our blend recipes, record our
incoming coffee deliveries, and managing our order
fulfillment and production needs. We have seen
improvements in:
- Receiving of green coffee
- Managing green coffee inventories
- Tracking lot numbers
- Roasting records
- Blend management
- Order fulfillment
- Roasted coffee packaging
It has taken a dedication to efficiency and
progression in order to make the transition into
using software to manage production and inventories.
As our company has grown, we have seen the necessity
for the CoffeeRoaster program to manage these
things.
Levi Chagnon
Project Manager
406.273.5490
levi@hunterbay.com
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