Case Studies: Enterprise Solutions

Telemedicine, using technology to bring doctors and patients together efficiently over distance, is a rapidly growing field. Since 2008, Saturn Systems has provided core software development and quality assurance services to industry leaders. Our projects range from medical device communications and integration, to online calendar management. Saturn Systems’ unique skills mix of device control and enterprise application development are the perfect fit for the industry.

Saturn Systems has provided staff augmentation to a leading company in the retirement planning solutions industry since 2007. With staff ranging from business analysts to .NET developers and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) experts, Saturn Systems has provided top technical expertise, competitive Rural Outsourcing rates and the flexible staff levels the customer needs.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) contracted Saturn Systems to design and develop an enterprise suite of applications to track attendance and service usage at 49 Workforce Centers across the state. Saturn Systems worked closely with DEED stakeholders, carefully designing the Customer Registration System (CRS) to meet the needs of a diverse clientele - Workforce Center operators, DEED management, and agency sponsors. The resulting solution required a variety of technologies, including: desktop applications, web services, online administration, ID card printing, bar code scanning and complex reporting. The application is used on a daily basis on more than 500 workstations in WorkForce Centers around Minnesota.

Saturn Systems was contracted to design and develop a web solution to provide fundraising services to non-profit organizations and their event participants. The purpose of the system was to allow online registration for charitable events, and offer a user-friendly, yet versatile means for fundraisers to create a personalized web site for collecting and reporting ongoing donations. To do this effectively, the system had to allow for quick and easy fundraiser registration and dynamic personalized web site, while preserving consistent organization branding. Integration with existing payment transaction software and an online and desktop fundraising tracking application were also key requirements. The resulting system was built and deployed successfully and has been instrumental in raising tens of millions of dollars for charity purposes.

A nationwide printer of newspapers, inserts and catalogs contacted Saturn Systems to replace an online portal used by chain retail advertising customers to design and customize weekly inserts. The system to be replaced was a heavyweight Java application with client PC and bandwidth requirements that frequently exceeded those of their customer base. Saturn Systems designed a new lightweight, purely web-based solution that supported online markup and annotation, page additions using approved templates and prototype generation. Significant back-end enhancements were made, adding workflow to ensure advertiser edits were routed, approved and processed. The resulting system has significantly simplified the weekly process of design, approval and publishing advertising circulars for Saturn’s customer and their advertising customers.

Saturn Systems took over support and enhancement of a complex system of web services and batch processes used by a non-profit that works with troubled mortgage owners to stay in their home. The system is continually being enhanced to add services, address new regulations and integrate with agencies and providers. The systems were developed by the previous vendor which used a hybrid onshore/offshore model. Saturn Systems was able to step in and deliver the necessary technical expertise and staffing at a lower cost than the previous vendor.

A regional provider of chemical dependency services contracted with Saturn Systems to provide support and enhancement of an existing web based secure forms solution used for tracking of all patient information and case activity. The site uses IBM Forms technology, formerly PureEdge, to accept information and integrate with attached smartcard readers to verify electronic signatures of staff and patients. The original system was developed using Microsoft Classic ASP which had become difficult to support. Saturn Systems redesigned the system to use ASP.NET and improved the usability of the interface. The resulting system has greatly simplified maintenance and reduced development costs.

A national chain of clothing stores with more than 700 outlets contracted Saturn Systems to create a web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application for use by all of their stores. The resulting application integrated with the point of sales (POS) system and allowed store staff to survey customers at the time of purchase. The design required support for multiple store brands, and each retail chain required its own unique survey form containing questions designed by the chain’s marketing staff. The application is widely used to collect tens of thousands of names, addresses, birthdays and personalized notes on customers, which are used to mail promotional materials and by store managers to contact individual customers regarding special sales and new merchandise.

Saturn Systems was contracted to design and develop a comprehensive case management solution for a provider of care, education, and treatment for children with emotional, behavioral, and learning disabilities. To prepare for the design phase Saturn Systems performed a complete analysis of all the major business and treatment entities within the organization. The result was a system designed to meet a wide variety of very detailed needs yet provide a straightforward interface usable by users of varying skill levels. The system has been a success for the customer and has greatly simplified life for their users, allowing them to focus on their jobs.

Saturn Systems was a contracted by a major auto parts supplier to enhance a legacy software system used to run several distribution centers. The software was originally developed in C and the exact version of source currently in production was unclear. Saturn engineers combed through a mix of source archives, including extraction from a crashed hard drive, to develop a base version that matched all existing functionality. From that source base a buildable modern environment was created and a variety of new features, including wireless printers and new scanner functionality, were added and deployed.

Saturn assumed a leadership and architecture role for the SPAWAR Enterprise Managed Services (EMS) application which is an e-commerce application that makes it easy for users to order and manage their critical telecom IT assets, while providing sophisticated financial and workflow controls to implement government mandated processes. The EMS application implements a tiered architecture using Java Server Pages (JSP) and Java Struts framework. The solution used BEA WebLogic Server as the application server and Oracle 9i as the database. Business layer components were created using Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB). Saturn's leadership and enterprise design skills made this project a great success.