Inventory control is a problem as old as retailing itself. In the old days, "inventory control" was mostly by-guess and by-golly backed up with the occasional physical inventory. However, with today's ever-shrinking margins and the increased costs of handling inventory, timely inventory information is vital.

Tony McCandless, a programmer analyst and partner with consulting company D. M. Lister and Associates, set out to solve the age-old inventory control problem for Lister client Beverage Control, Inc., a wholesale liquor and wine distributor in Knoxville, Tennessee.

"Beverage Control's inventory problems were quite predictable," Tony recalls. "Because the sales people out in the field didn't have access to current information, duplicate orders, incorrect billing, and lax credit-limit enforcement were common events." Over a period of years, Tony had discussed, and even researched, using hand-held wireless devices for inventory control at Beverage Control. Associated software and hardware costs, though, always conspired to move the project to the back burner.

"For this app, green-screen devices were out of the question," Tony comments. "We needed wireless-connected hand-held PCs running a Windows graphical user interface. We also needed a database for field users to connect to when not connected to the home-office AS/400." The problem was figuring out how to use RPG skills to build a Windows-like interface that could operate with a wireless system. "We knew what we needed, but we couldn't find anything that was deemed cost effective enough to make the investment worthwhile," Tony remembers.

A Fresh Approach to an Old Problem

About a year ago, Tony happened upon ASNA Visual RPG (AVR). AVR is a Windows-based development environment that lets programmers create Windows and Web-based applications. AVR creates native Windows executables that connect in realtime to the iSeries to provide sub-second file I/O response times. These programs also connect, without any source code changes, to Windows NT/2000 Server and Windows laptops' and desktops' databases. AVR lets programmers use either RPG/400, ILE RPG, or AVR's CL-like RPG syntax, Caviar, to write programs.

The programming team at D. M. Lister had experience with some screen-scraping tools, but hadn't considered any other development environments. Tony and the other programmers at Lister were all hard-core green-screen RPG programmers and, until AVR came along, didn't really even consider using anything beyond green-screen RPG.

"After downloading a copy of AVR, I immediately fell in love with it! I knew instantly that, coupled with the right hardware, we'd found the answer to Beverage Control's inventory problem. AVR was clearly up to this challenge," Tony explains.

With ASNA's AVR, Tony and the other Lister programmers could use their RPG skills in a Windows graphical environment. The learning curve would be low and they could deliver the modern interface Beverage Control's inventory application needed.

Charting the Course

Having decided on AVR as the development environment, Tony turned his attention to selecting a wireless device. He settled on the ViewSonic 1000-2 handheld tablet PC. It offered both touch screen and keyboard input, was affordable (costing about the same as a mid-priced laptop), and offered built-in wireless connectivity. The next step was a five-day class at ASNA's training center in San Antonio.

"A couple of us had a week's training at ASNA and quickly learned the ins and outs of AVR," Tony recounts. "It was extremely easy to learn, particularly AVR's advanced RPG syntax. We became familiar with AVR so quickly that now we really miss it when we have to do green-screen RPG work." In additional to ASNA training, Tony also felt that the sample AVR applications that ship with the product were a big help.

AVR's ease of use was a plus for Tony and the other Lister programmers, but AVR also offered another advantage: its ability to connect seamlessly to the iSeries, Microsoft SQL Server, and ASNA's own local PC database. The Lister programming team built an application that not only connected to the iSeries and performed well even over the wireless connection, but was also capable of connecting to ASNA's local database. This database lets users work with ASNA applications, with or without an iSeries connection.

"AVR's database capabilities made our job a lot easier. I had originally thought we were going to have to dip into ODBC and Visual Basic. Not with AVR! Our AVR Beverage Control inventory application's database support is fantastic," Tony enthuses. (Lister built and provides help desk support for end users of Beverage Control's application.)

Up and Running

Tony used ASNA Visual RPG to connect hand-held ViewSonic wireless PCs to Beverage Control's home office iSeries. The result was an always-connected solution to Beverage Control, Inc.'s inventory control application. Tony and another programmer coded the entire Beverage Control inventory from start to finish in about two months.

"We were stunned at how quickly the project went," Tony relates. "Our application keeps Beverage Control field salespeople fully informed during their entire sales process. They can immediately offer substitutions when products are out of stock, use past orders to suggest quantities and to upsell to customers for their next order, and decrease duplicate orders that result in customer credits and returns. Through AVR and the wireless ViewSonic tablets, the field sales people have instant access to the same information as the home office employees."

The Beverage Control AVR programs were written using standard Windows user interface conventions. This simplified teaching the new application to the field salespeople. The application was even engineered to exploit the touch-screen capabilities of the ViewSonic table (although keyboard input is also enabled).

"Our users were impressed by the user interface. To show them that they could use the device wirelessly, or even while disconnected from the iSeries was a lot of fun. They were very impressed!" says Tony.

Tony notes that the biggest problem with the Beverage Control application has been the demand it's driven for enhancing other applications with graphical interfaces. "When Beverage Control saw the remote sales application, they immediately thought of several applications to add to their application wish list," Tony grins. "We've worked with Beverage Control for more than 25 years. Given the way they love our AVR applications, we think we've got another 25 years' worth of work lined up!"

Roger Pence is education director for ASNA. You can reach him at roger.pence@asna.com.