In 2010 Coffee Analysts, an independent coffee and tea testing laboratory, contacted us to support and enhance their laboratory information system.  At the time they were not getting the support they needed from their offshore developer, resulting in production disruptions.  Since then, we have worked with them on incremental changes to support testing of new types of products, upgrades to their network infrastructure, new customer needs for accessing test results, and the myriad of day to day changes that allow the system to serve as the foundation of their testing service.  Recently we worked with their new network support company to migrate their operating systems from in-house servers to a central data center in the cloud. As with New England Precision, this was accomplished with zero downtime.

How we did it

Initially, RIS worked with Coffee Analysts to understand both their system and how they had leveraged it to grow their successful business.  Based on their work style, we developed a process for identifying work, estimating the cost, and efficiently implementing changes within their specific budget parameters.  

Soon after, we discovered that the cost to test each change and ensure it was working properly was limiting the number of changes that they could complete within their budget.  We worked with them to devise a process by which they were able to perform most of the testing, reducing the cost of each change. This allows us to complete more of their requests within the same budget while maintaining the high reliability necessary for their daily use of the system.  

What it meant for them

Coffee Analysts is able to adjust their system to accommodate the changing needs of their customers while maintaining control over their technology budget. By involving Coffee Analysts in the development process, they are able to make the most of their development budget by focusing our efforts on implementing system changes while they test the changes themselves.  This allows us to focus our efforts on the upgrades to their system while relying on their knowledge of the day to day use of the system to confirm that the changes are working they way they need them to.

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