The Technical Assessment
In this case study, we examine the collaboration between South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) and Century Printing & Packaging (CPP) to address the company’s need to modernize its custom legacy software. SCMEP’s Regional Vice President initiated contact with Deveren Werne from TSVMap, leading to a series of meetings and pre-discovery sessions with CPP.
Following the preliminary discussions, TSVMap proposed a comprehensive technical specification value map to analyze CPP’s legacy software. This exploratory process provided a detailed understanding of the software’s various aspects, its usage by end-users, and its configuration and management by CPP’s service provider.
TSVMap’s final assessment document presented the software’s current state, future prospects, and a range of recommendations. These options included adopting an off-the-shelf solution like an ERP or MRP application, implementing a hybrid application with modifications to existing solutions, or developing custom software on a new, cloud-based platform that CPP would own and maintain. The custom software would be built on open-source technology, employing widely used programming languages and databases, allowing CPP to expand and improve the application as needed.
Upon reviewing the assessment, CPP decided to pursue the development of custom software to replace their legacy system. Consequently, Mojoe was invited to submit a proposal for the execution of this software development project.
Collaboration
Collaboration with Mojoe involved a series of meetings during which the Century Printing & Packaging (CPP) team shared their vision, current processes, and application. The goal was to develop a cloud-based solution that eliminated the need for an on-site server and provided remote access to users, even when traveling. Though initially apprehensive about the unknown, the CPP team soon realized the benefits of upgrading their system and wished they had initiated the process earlier.
Ben Waldrop, President, and Co-Owner of Century Printing, expressed his enthusiasm for the project, stating, “We should have started this about three years before we did. We didn’t realize how much we were changing things to adapt to the software, rather than the software adapting to the processes of the company. It’s been a big learning curve, and we are excited to see it come together.”
The Solution:
After a year of meetings, planning, and development, the CPP team received a new, cloud-based solution that enabled them to work cohesively as a team, irrespective of their location. Waldrop acknowledged Mojoe’s expertise in software development, saying, “We’re great at printing, but not so good at software, so we are glad to have a team like Mojoe working with us. I think that Deveren has done a really good job of getting a sense of the strategic piece of this, and Mark and his team have done a nice job of translating that into the nuts and bolts of how we work.”
Services provided by Mojoe included:
- Project Management
- Documentation
- Design
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Software Development
- Database Development
- Integrations
- AWS Configuration
- Cloud Storage
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Company Background:
Century Printing & Packaging (CPP) was established 25 years ago by Don Waldrop and his sons, Ben and Neil, as a small, family-owned textile supply business. Over the years, the company identified a market gap for high-quality labels, prompting a shift and expansion into labeling and packaging products, with newspapers becoming a prime customer. Today, CPP boasts 26 employees and an extensive product offering, catering to a wide range of industries such as newspapers, food, beverage, nutraceuticals, and more.
The Challenge:
Before partnering with Mojoe, CPP’s data was stored in a application that had been built incrementally over a decade as the company grew. Initially, this system was a significant improvement over Excel sheets, but the SQL-based infrastructure was becoming outdated. CPP sought a more modern solution to streamline communications and daily processes, setting the stage for their collaboration with Mojoe.