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Document DEVICE REPORTHome Depot
CASE STUDY

Home Depot's Own Home Improvement Project Hinges on JClass® ServerChart

At Home Depot, associates--as Home Depot employees are called--take great pride in providing the very best in customer service. To deliver on this high level of service, Home Depot must ensure that all of its associates are well-trained and well-informed. The company must also manage staff schedules so that the right associates are available to customers at the right times. Home Depot's IT professionals are behind the scenes, making sure the systems are in place to support customer service goals.

The home improvement industry is surprisingly complex. In some U.S. states, for example, the purchase of a carpet is taxable or non-taxable depending on whether it will be installed on a concrete or wood floor. Home Depot associates need this kind of information at their fingertips. And just because Home Depot associates excel in their respective trades, doesn't mean they're computer savvy. Imagine a master carpenter helping you choose materials for your kitchen cabinet project. He's an expert in cabinetry, not necessarily in computers. Home Depot's information systems must address a high level of complexity but also be easy to use.
TheChallenge
Several character-based systems access a mainframe at Home Depot head office that acts as a central storehouse of customer information. Because many of these systems are complex, the Information Systems group experimented with several options for improving usability. One such project yielded a new application for handling the return of merchandise, which was built using C++ and Visual Basic. Although associates liked the application for its ease of use, it turned out to be far too expensive to support and maintain.

How could Home Depot's internal systems handle the complexity and be easy-to-use and easy to support? The first step was to make a significant move to development in Java. Information Services then determined that, among other things, providing information to associates in server-side charts would address ease of use and maintenance.
TheQuest Solution
Once the requirements definitions for server-side charting were established, Chambers' team began the task of finding the right tool for the job. According to Chambers, the evaluation process went smoothly, clearing the way for an easy decision to choose JClass® ServerChart for server-side charting. JClass ServerChart is a server-side Java component that brings interactive charting from a J2EE-compliant application server to the browsers of an entire network of users.

"Home Depot needed to find an interactive, Java-based charting tool that would work on both the client- and server-side. Since the applications are used on our store floors, they have to be easy to use and versatile enough to provide multiple data sets on a single chart. When we started looking, the list became very, very short. Quest Software bubbled right to the top. When we made the decision to go with JClass ServerChart, it was a long-term decision. It is one of the best products on the market and we plan to use it throughout all of our applications," Chambers said.

According to Chambers, the installation of JClass ServerChart was straightforward, the implementation was successful and there were no technical or integration issues once development began. The features of JClass ServerChart that sold the selection team were: the ability to display different data sets on one chart, handle different chart types (e.g., a pie chart and a bar chart) on the same display and make data interactive. Users can mouse over portions of a chart, view a pop-up box with information pertaining to that area and drill down for further information. Interactivity, said Chambers, is key.

APPLICATION MANAGEMENT

DATABASE MANAGEMENT

Overview

"The Home Depot needed to find an interactive Java-based charting tool that would work on both the client- and server-side. Since the application would be used on our store floors, it had to be easy to use and versatile enough that it could provide multiple data points on a single chart. When we started looking, the list became very, very short. Quest Software bubbled right to the top. When we made the decision to go with JClass ServerChart, it was a long-term decision. It is one of the best products on the market and we plan to use it through-out all of our applications."



Curtis Chambers Chief Architect,

Information Services The Home Depot

Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia Services Home improvement specialty retailer Critical Needs Java solution to provide information to associates in server-side charts that would address ease of use and maintenance Solution JClass ServerChart Results · Straightforward installation · Successful implementation ·No technical or integration issues once
development started ·Improved efficiency and effectiveness
for Labor and Service Management applications · Lowered training costs
WINDOWS MANAGEMENT

The first application to benefit from server-side charting is a new Labor system under development. Management associates at Home Depot stores determine staffing requirements by calculating schedules manually. Each store is given a certain number of hours for a given time period based on the volume of sales for that store. Managers need to balance the number of cashiers on duty, the associates available to answer questions and handle special orders and the associates who handle receiving and inventory. It's crucial that they know how their staff can best handle the total time allotted. If a store goes over hours, they're inefficient. If it goes under hours, it's likely that a customer is not being served.
Once the Labor application is developed, Chambers predicts that a task that typically takes up to four hours will take half an hour. When managers have access to scheduling information in a graphical format, their decisions will be quicker and more precise and they'll be back out on the store floor where they're most effective.
Another Home Depot application that will benefit from JClass ServerChart is Special Services, which manages the customer relationship for any special order item. A complicated system for the average Home Depot associate, Special Systems was a prime candidate for intuitive, interactive charts. The next version of the Special Services system is being built as a Web-based application. It must be able to show not only the information that associates on the floor need, but also trend information for management associates.
TheBottom Line
To put the cost savings of using JClass ServerChart in perspective, Chambers points to overall IT costs. "We spend multiple millions of dollars on our network and other core parts of our infrastructure. But our biggest cost as an IT organization has nothing to do with that. System training is by far our most significant cost," Chambers noted.
A key tool in the battle to lower training costs, JClass ServerChart is a significant addition to Home Depot's toolbox. If associates and managers spend less time learning and using internal systems, they can focus on what they do best--serving customers. All savings result in even better customer service and a healthier bottom line. Chambers said "Now that I have a way to provide enterprise information in an intuitive, interactive format, why not take it a step further and deliver this to all our users? We provide information to merchants, regional vice presidents, corporate vice presidents--everyone up to our CEO. Why not provide information to everyone in this format?"
About Home Depot
Founded in 1978, The Home Depot® is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer and the second largest retailer in the United States, with fiscal 2004 sales of $73.1 billion. The company employs approximately 325,000 associates and has 1,919 stores in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The Home Depot has been recognized by Fortune as the No.1 Most Admired Specialty Retailer for 2005. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor's 500 Index. HDE.
About Quest Software, Inc.
Quest Software, Inc. delivers innovative products that help organizations get more performance and productivity from their applications, databases and Windows infrastructure. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focus on what works best, Quest helps more than 18,000 customers worldwide meet higher expectations for enterprise IT. Quest Software can be found in offices around the globe and at www.quest.com.
© 2006 Quest Software, Inc. Quest and JClass ServerChart are registered trademarks of Quest Software, Inc. All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
APM­HOMEDEPOT-CS-041906


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