VFUG Meeting: Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Topic: VFP ERP Application by Seven Qi

Seven Qi will present an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software special for the solution of the garments and shoes manufacturing industry. It is developed in Visual Foxpro 8.0, the back end can be Visual Foxpro Database, SQL Server 2000 or Oracle Database to match the budgets of different companies. It is currently running in many garments and shoes factories in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the Middle East. He will introduce 3 modules in Foxpro Database version: Personnel, Production and Payroll. These are the basic information systems for those manufacturing factories, but it can help the factory improve the accuracy and productivity greatly.

All the techniques in the presentation topics are part of the same ERP software, the topics will include:

1. Data Entry design techniques at a large scale data environment (Real Time Search, Append, Update, Delete) using the new features of VFP 8.0. This is an environment of Visual Foxpro database tables which have up to a million records. Every time the data entry clerk scans one day's working records for an employee, the previous records must be displayed in a grid, plus the new record. All the data in the grid can be modified or deleted and can be saved by clicking the SAVE button, but that new record can't be duplicated in the history. This is a challenge to do it in a way that the data entry clerk experiences no delay.

2. Column and Row reversed techniques. It's very important to deal with multiple colors and sizes in the garments and shoes industry. Sometimes the processing is very difficult - I will show you why we need Column and Row reverse and how to do it. It is also a key technique in the development of garments and shoes software.

3. How to implement a network environment application in an easy way. Normally we use tools such as InstallShield to pack the application files into one file; it is very easy for the users to install in a desktop computer. But how about the network environment? Do we need to install and do the configuration for each computer? One simple way: Install the software, including the compiled program file and data to a Windows Server, and run it by a shortcut in the user's computer. No configurations! It lets me easily do customer service remotely! I will show how I do it and what the conditions are.

Seven Qi was the senior system developer of 5Hills Software Ltd in Hong Kong, and the owner of this ERP software, which he developed by himself. He has more than 10 years manufacturing software development experience, especially in garments and shoes industry solutions. As the expert of the garment construction, production engineering and information system development, he developed software in Visual Foxpro such as Human Resource, Production Planning, Production Work In Progress, Material Management, Orders and Sales, Accounting, etc. for the garment company he worked for.
He is also a database professional, having in-depth knowledge of Oracle, SQL Server 2000, Visual Foxpro, ACCESS 2000. Oracle Certified Professional in 8I&9I.