Software Cases

Randy Lindsey

Home-delivery Dairy Delivery, Billing and Production Forecasting System

A large dairy farm which delivers milk to homes (the traditional "milkman") was hamstrung by a manual paper-based tracking and billing system. Delivery and billing errors were common, and a full-time employee and truck were kept occupied daily correcting missed deliveries from the previous night.

I designed and implemented a new system using FoxPro for Windows which maintains customer accounts, including "standing orders" (routine weekly orders), special orders, changes including vacation holds and notes to drivers, including automatically generated notes for all changes in normal delivery schedules. It facilitates much faster daily entry of deliveries into the billing system by automatically generating the normal and special orders, and only requiring the operator to enter changes due to notes left by the customer in their milk box. It generates monthly bills, including volume discounts, and tracks accounts receivable. Of particular value is the production forecast which tells the dairy how much of each product is expected to be needed for the next day, plus the driver load sheet which shows the driver how much product to load into the truck for each route, including customary overages to handle notes left by the customer.

The system has allowed the dairy to more than triple its routes and customers, taking advantage of customer demand for more natural, hormone-free milk delivered in recyclable glass bottles. It continues to be used today.

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