The Visble Edge - June 2004

Visible Spotlight - Feature Story

• Crestline Coach and Visible Developer

Razor

• Special Promotions
• Training
• VersionWeaver
• Razor Tech Tip

LCSIS

• Lean Manufacturing Processes

Analyst

• Promotions

Puzzler

Thirty-three years ago, three Saskatchewan boys set out to prove they could build a better ambulance. Three decades and 5000 vehicles later, their company -- Crestline Coach Ltd -- is still going strong. Part of the reason for that is a strong commitment to manufacturing and distributing innovative vehicles, and employing cutting edge technologies. ( www.crestlinecoach.com )

Today, the company sells a wide range of buses including Tour, Charter, Shuttle, Transit and Paratransit. As the company grew, so did its commitment to cutting edge technology. By 1996, Ron Porter, now a full-time programmer/analyst, was consulting to the company to streamline its business processes through better information technology. Among his responsibilities was the development of a scheduling program followed by a number of other applications for internal use, such as a reporting application that consolidates reports
and manages security for all of those reports in one central place.

Ron Porter got involved with Visible's Developer product while trying to come up with a better way to get small internal programs built quickly and to be able to quickly and easily make modifications to those programs. Using Developer, Porter has created a variety of add-in screens to existing applications, such as a little employee's object that keeps track of employees, which can be used in all applications that need access to employees table. According to Porter, "where it (Developer) really shines is taking these tiny little things and making them work so nicely. Instead of spending a week getting everything figured out, I spent half a day - that's an estimate of what it would take to re-do something similar." Porter compared many products before he chose Developer, which he feels does the best job of translating data structures into end-user screens of any product he tried.

"The biggest difference is that Visible Developer seems to do a better job combining both aspects of application development into one place: what do the data structures look like and how does that relate to end user screens."

"When I was evaluating products, things very quickly settled down to Visible Developer. I spent a little bit of time with everything I could find, and very quickly came to the realization that Visible Developer worked the way I thought. There seemed to be a natural connection. With the others, I had to figure out what their particular abstraction was and translate that. Visible Developer is a very transparent process."

To read more about Developer, go to
http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com/Products/Developer/

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Any new or current customer who purchases 10 or more licenses of Razor by June 30, 2004 can select ONE of the following options for FREE:

A. 5 additional licenses of Razor - You receive a total of 15 licenses of Razor.

B. IssueWeaver - Razor's web based interface to the problem tracking database.

C. Set of 10 Razor & IssueWeaver hard copy manuals.

*** This offer is not valid on previous purchases. ***

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If you have yet to sign up for our Razor training classes, you are really missing out on a fantastic opportunity. This month's Razor End User & Administrator class is full. However, we still have spots open in another one of our popular training classes, implementing a Process with Razor. Training accommodations at the Cocoa Beach Marriott and Resort are awesome! Our ocean front site allows you to stroll the beach during breaks and unwind after class.

Don't forget that you will also get great instruction from our Razor experts all day, every day.

Our Razor instructors are intimately familiar with the administration, configuration, and application of Razor to satisfy a wide variety of configuration management and process management applications. Visit the Razor web site for details and dates of our next training class.

http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com/Services/training/vt_razor.htm

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Development on the Razor web interface for Versions, VersionWeaver, is currently being wrapped up by our developers. Here is a brief overview of VersionWeaver. We are now looking for a few good beta test sites. If you are interested in VersionWeaver and would like to become a beta test site please contact Diane Dekkers at diane.dekkers@visiblesystemscorp.com.

VersionWeaver extends the Razor tool suite beyond your network of computers sharing the same file system. With VersionWeaver, members of your project team can control, monitor, and archive changes made to files in your development environment from any location via the Internet, or via your Intranet. Team members may work from any platform that supports a web browser, including UNIX/Linux machines, PCs, and Macs.

While the functionality offered by VersionWeaver is based-upon the existing Razor Versions tool in the Razor suite, VersionWeaver offers the following several advantages over the existing Versions tool.

VersionWeaver allows the user to interface to Razor via a compatible web browser. This alleviates the need to install Razor application software on your machine. System administrators need only update the VersionWeaver software installed on the web server.

VersionWeaver users will begin using the latest release when they login to VersionWeaver via their web browser. VersionWeaver eliminates the problem currently experienced with some firewalls with the Razor Versions tool,
Which employs an unorthodox mechanism that makes it firewall 'unfriendly'.

VersionWeaver enables customers to customize the VersionWeaver user-interface through the use of custom headers/footers as well as cascading style-sheets (CSS).

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Create a Report Listing Files that have Changed in the Versions/Report filter area, there is a way to request a listing of all files that have changed within a time frame you specify:

• In Versions, Choose Reports, Create/Modify from the main menu.
• In the "Report Definition" GUI, select Edit, New Filter.
• In the "User Report Filter" GUI, choose the necessary attributes from the "Select from" list such as "File Name" and "Last Modified".
• Click the "Modified Range" button, and set a starting date and an ending date.
• Verify that the "Disable" checkbox is not selected.
• Save the report filter.
  

This will list the files that were modified/changed within the specified time period when you generate the report.

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LCSIS & Lean Manufacturing Processes

Many companies have years of experience in lean manufacturing processes on the factory floor. Today's challenge is creating an enterprise wide IT structure that will support these Lean Manufacturing Processes. One very cost effective approach is using Visible System's Zachman Framework, an enterprise architecture/data integration solution of which LCSIS is its lifecycle module.

This Product Data Management System is designed, from the ground up, to meet the specialized needs of product development. The LCSIS system enables the effective integration, structuring, and dissemination of the critical product and process data associated with Product Development, Engineering, Production, Customer Service and Support. LCSIS also promotes cross-departmental synergism and optimal use of organizational resources by combining a robust data management environment with an easy to use interface to increase productivity, improve standards compliance, and build overall competitiveness. LCSIS and lean manufacturing are a hand in hand winner.

Visit us at http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com/Products/LCSIS/index.htm to learn more and save a great deal on your PDM challenges.

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Attend a Visible Analyst webinar by July 1st and receive $200 off the price of the Visible Analyst Enterprise Framework edition.

For a schedule of Visible product webinars, please visit our website at
http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com/Products/webinars.htm

*** This offer is not valid on previous purchases. ***

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Question:

I have four wings, but cannot fly, I never laugh and never cry;
On the same spot I'm always found, toiling away with little sound.

What am I?

The answer to the above puzzle can be found at:
http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com/News/puzzles.htm

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