Solution:   Optimax president Mike Mandina has had a vision for over a decade of an expert system which would support a Lean Manufacturing focus in his business by establishing a common repository of optical calculations, tied to an organizational learning mechanism. Mike's idea was that as Optimax personnel gain experience with different glass materials, different coatings, different geometries, and so on that they should be able to easily share that learning, driving continuous improvement across Optimax business processes. Optimax engaged three separate software vendors on different occassions over the last decade, each of which tried to develop a solution, went badly over budget (multi-year efforts for what was planned to be 4-6 month projects), and failed to come up with a satisfactory system. There was a core requirement which Optimax couldn't articulate, and which each vendor missed in their analysis of the problem - that the math behind the solution would change over time. Optimax needed the ability to edit the core math functions which drive business logic in the system as they continue to learn what works. Rapid Web Development:  Within 8 months, ObjectFrame built a system called Lightspeed for Optimax, with a facility called OptiCalc at its heart. OptiCalc allows Optimax personnel (controlled by security roles and permissions) to edit core Lightspeed math, changing application behavior. The first Lightspeed module, OptiSpec, takes in lens parameters (radius, center thickness, diameter, material index of refraction, etc.) and produces suggestions for a process to manufacture the optic. It then provides optical engineers with a wizard to help them fine tune those suggestions into a process to be executed on the manufacturing floor. We are leveraging offshore programming support to accomplish these goals (a clean software development process with appropriate tooling keeps this managable), and also leveraging the Symfony framework. Based on the success of the OptiSpec module, Optimax established a long term relationship with ObjectFrame to grow Lightspeed into an enterprise system which, when complete, will include full order life-cycle management, from the quoting process through shipping, and which will support business process analytics. ObjectFrame has since completed the Tool Library module, replacing a custom tool management application written by another vendor, and the OptiQuote module, which replaced yet another legacy application written in yet another technology. Each of these applications worked with the same data, very often implementing the same math to do so. Unfortunately, as siloed applications, these implementations were not consistent, and moreover Optimax personnel were forced to do duplicate data entry into each system. As a common, enterprise application, Lightspeed handles everything the old systems did, but based on a common data set and common code. Lightspeed ties these business processes together into a common workflow such that work is passed from department to department in managed and auditable queues. About a decade ago, ObjectFrame also consulted for Optimax including: the selection, installation, and heavily custom configuration of a manufacturing ERP system (which Lightspeed will eventually integrate with); the design and physical installation of a company-wide Local-Area-Network; the logical and physical wiring of that LAN to the Internet such that all LAN users are automatically Internet users; the design and development of a Web site; and the detailed training of company employees on the proper use of the installed system.

Testimonial:   "ObjectFrame Technologies built and specified a technology infrastructure for our company, virtually from the ground up, which supports the extremely rapid growth we have experienced and continue to experience." - Mike Mandina, President Optimax Systems, Inc.

Technologies:   Symfony (RAD open source framework built on top of PHP 5, MySQL, AJAX, among other powerful, proven, and platform independent technologies).