Welcome to the personal page for John Cosmas

JOHN COSMAS
Program Manager

Project Highlights:

		Term: Course of 5 months
		Total Hours: 200+ hours
		CMM: Level III
		CMMi: Level II
		Resources: 1
		Compliance: SOXS
		Methods: RAD, Agile

Core Applications

		Labor Management
		Time Studies & Ergon
		Data Warehousing
		Time Management
		BI Reporting
		Microsoft Access 2003/2007
		Visual Basic Applications
		IBM AS/400 DB2
		Manhattan Associates
		ETL, EDI, XML

Features Technologies:

		Windows 2008 Server 64-bit
		Windows Multipoint Server
		Microsoft Access
		Microsoft Office Developer
		VM Ware Workstation
		IBM DB2 SQL
		IBM iSeries & ODBC
		IBM Data Studio
		Kronos Time Management
		TZA Warehouse Management
		Citrix Client
		CISCO VPN

View solution screenshots:
click on any link to view screenshot...

The My OWS screen allows users to access their collection of OWS records quickly, and provide the means to reach individual OWS using a search tool. This feature enables users to navigate OWS with less clicks and orders them accordingly in a easily accessible manner that makes traditional designs less user-centric.

The tabbed design of operational consoles organizes the underlying OWS records into manageable containers, allowing users to find them according to specific operational entities such as Facilities and Skill Centers, less the traditional method of scouring cumbersome reports.

Wizards regulate user interactivity and alleviates errors from user input. It also confines the way a user to established technical standards which helps to manage input into measurable factors that accurately calculates work performance using pre-defined formulas that represent real-world data. Color-coding entry fields enables users to distinguish between locked and mandatory entry fields.

The custom PFD option provides an engineer direct access to defining PFD factors that breaks down standards into time-centric activities that accommodates an entire series of ergon activities attributed with a worker OWS. Underlying formulas update the Total PFD values whenever a single factor is changed, and checks inputs to ensure the that the user does not omit mandatory fields. A warning is also generated whenever a user selects factors that may exceed a maximum number of allowable minutes which is maintained through a configuration table which alleviates hard-coding.

Intelligent reports allows engineers to assess OWS status and data with easy and

An administration console is used to change, add and remove configurable lookup factors that allows the application to operate with a high degree of adaptability as real-world standard evolve with working conditions improving and changing over time. This alleviates additional programming and provides engineers direct access to calculation factors without developer involvement.

A configuration screen with a set of options alleviates the need to hard-code default settings and values which makes the entire user experience highly configurable as standards evolve to meet changing work conditions. Underlying wizards, queries and reports can react accordingly with no need for additional programming since the existing design is reliant on a data-driven model.

User logging serves the requirements for revision control and SOX compliance so that an administrator can just as easily recreate a previous version of an OWS, and also determine the users who has was responsible for creating, updating and deleting an established OWS. This does not only create accountability, but provides a clear and concise apparatus for detailed audits.

This section is currently under development.

This is a JOB SERVICE that performs all of the automated tasks that is normally executed by the CLERK or USER. Seen above, the JOB SERVICE is executing a AS/400 command string that processes a parameterized QUERY.

This section is currently under development.

Enhanced DASHBOARD

Operational views

Wizard-based inputs

Custom PFD option

Job Log Console

Graphical Report Dashboard

Automated job processing

Packaged reports

Job Calendar View

Intelligent Job Tasker

Ease of Adjustments

Error Logging

Hanesbrands

Hanesbrands is the manufacturer of the most popular brand of intimates, apparel and underwear in the US. Their distribution centers are located throughout the west and east coast of the US, where they receive, package, rebrand and ship orders of packaged, ready-to-ship materials to customers throughout the country. Their work centers operate at high efficiency, which is monitored using Operational Work Standard to measure the work performance of each task. A new MS Access based application which features a highly functional set of dashboards, filtered screens, input wizards and customizable lookup tables regulated by administrator defined operational parameters makes this a dynamically-driven application.

Operational Work Standard

This client-server model operates within a Citrix environment allows users to login and manage ACCESS applications and attempting to integrate code that would repeat the operations of the existing clerks to produce the necessary output. As experience dictates, this would involve the integration of some external code to ensure that the human operations are repeatable PROGRAMATICALLY. Any existing user prompts, queries, import & export procedures would be transparent to the application to support seamless interactivity, while suffering no loss of productivity.

TBD. This well rounded system features include:

		Work Standard Management
		Workflow based processes
		User specific security
		Dashboard technology
		Standardized reports
		Advanced search tool
		Data Warehousing
		Revision control & history
		SOX compliance for auditing
		Exception handling and error detection

TBD

The 2-tiered solution that was produced, had to accommodate a host of technical capabilities to meet the AUTOMATION requirements, which was not limited to the simple steps of generating report output, but a set of operations to ensure that the entire process is compliant. The difficulties of traversing the WM environment using the iSeries ActiveX controls were overcome and standard DAO operations facilitated the transfer of query output files into data tables that were easy to navigate. The following features were integrated into the design of the LMS solution.

		Schedule based job instantiation
		Scanning INBOX and verifying attachments
		Processing INBOUND documents
		Supports interactivity for legacy systems
		Dispatching packaged reports
		Transforming electronic data files
		Daily job logging and reporting
		Centralized administration and monitoring
		Repository of archived transactions
		Datamart with warehoused access

TBD

Report Enhancements

TBD

Job Automation

TBD.

Management Console

TBD:

		User profile centric dashboard
		Graphical based reports console
		Employee console with data previews
		New Employee Wizard
		Performance & exception reports
		Comprehensive search tools
		Job logs & transaction history
		Report catalog and listings by locations
		Calendar controls for period activity views

These are just some of the many features of the LMS MANAGER, which enables administrators to create new jobs, re-run failed jobs, monitor performance and perform audits to meet compliance requirements.

Audit Control for SOXS Compliance

New control fields were put into place to support AUDIT processes to meet SOXS compliance. This ensures that any new elements such as EMPLOYEES may be documented. Changes made to EMPLOYEES and LABOR data such as RATES, LOCATIONS, SHIFTS and SKILL CENTER or departments are carefully tracked so that the application data remains compliant for reporting purposes.

Outlook Support

INBOUND files containing transaction records for processing are delivered via OUTLOOK. The LMS SERVICE must traverse the INBOX folder to locate a file that meets the characteristics of the individual job requirement by opening them, inspecting its content and matching it against certain parameters such as SHIFT DATES, WAREHOUSE, SKILL CENTERS and other elements. Once these conditions have been satisfied, the JOB SERVICE will continue to process the file to complete the JOB STEPS it was intended to perform. This requirement was applied to other jobs as well with similar needs as different vendors would supply various formats and layouts. Therefore, the VALIDATION code is very explicit in its functionality, but flexible enough to accommodate other forms such as CSV, XLS, EDI and XML documents as well. A log of these INBOUND transactions are retained for auditing and to accommodate processes where partial data for a SHIFT DATE is transmitted in chunks.

A maintenance module was developed to reduce and eliminate any old messages to ensure that the OUTLOOK account would not suffer the overhead and size of file transmissions. This will reduce the footprint of the applications, while logs are retained for audit purposes when files are EXPUNGED.

XML & EDI Support

A unique service that has been added is the support for XML and EDI transactions. A simple SPECIFICATIONS translator was designed to generate an IMPORT SPECIFICATION to facilitate the transformation of INBOUND files into discernable transactions. This enabled future support for DTD documents and changes while retaining the performance and integrity of the underlying BI applications. A set of functions were created to extract and transform INBOUND data into a series of tables in MS ACCESS data files making it easy to process.

Design Framework

A design framework was put into place along with extensive documentation to enable a new set of BI solutions to be developed with relative ease and compliance. This enables any new development to take place RAPIDLY, which ensuring that the basic principals of LABOR & ERGON MANAGEMENT are observed.

Documentation

A complete set of documents were prepared comprising of charts, matrices, step-by-step how to's, and troubleshooting guide to help administrators and provide developers with technical information on the day-to-day operations. This was not available previously. Specific topics such as integration, development of new solutions, testing, debugging and problems with OFFICE updates were addresses, along with instructions on how to navigate the AS/400 applications. A journal was also prepared to answer concerns about the technical difficulties of communications with AS/400 and traversing transaction data. Changes made on a daily basis with rationale was documented to facilitate developers who may be assigned to continue the effort. Industrial engineering concepts, principles and labor related practices were also covered to enable developer and engineers to navigate the solution architecture when new demands and tools are developed.