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Bespoke Carton Scanning Application
Scope Engineering Services (SES) had for many years worked closely with TNT the
parcel couriers installing and designing PC controlled conveyor systems using the
Honeywell SDS control platform. However one day they where asked to develop
an application to help TNT track consignments from one of its contract customes
(a large computer equipment supplier). SES was skilled in developing PC control
applications but the requirements for this project precluded the use of their favourite
technology. This was due to the large amounts of data handling required and
communications requirements.
The requirements was for a small conveyor system with an overhead omnidirectional
barcode reader that would monitor box consingment numbers as they are loaded into
the TNT vans. All consingment numbers had to be recorded, the system would
then lookup the the consingment number in an onboard database of consignment number
to work out if the consingment was allowed to proceed onto the van. This would
be determined by a set of configurable rules that would allow various aspects of
the consingment to be checked. The rules for a consignment could be configured
to be active only during certain time periods, or only when a consignement was destined
for a particular TNT route code. Certain rules could even be combined, such
as only allow consignments for a particular route code between 9AM and 11AM at loading
door 1. The full range of rules was quite extensive and would allow checks
to be made against almost any detail of the consignment. The end result was
that the system recorded and check every carton as it was loaded in to the TNT vans
Scope called Mission Critical Software Ltd with the basic system requirements, around
which we designed a high level architectural plan for the system, to show all communications
links between the end users systems and the system under development. This
helped us to understand the flow of data and the reqirements of the end users systems.
Following this we were able to created a detailed requirements documents that was
accepted by all four parties ( SES, TNT, End User and Mission Critical Software
Ltd).
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