Challenge
Upskilling medical engineers in software development
MTP had been using an in-house developed Clipper based Asset Management system which did exactly what they wanted it to do; it had been fine-tuned over 25 years by MTP’s own biomedical engineers.
However, over time, the volume of data and also the number of customers were growing and the system came to its limits; MTP could not interact with customers as only MTP staff could access the system. While customer inquiries had been dealt with by phone, email or fax, the time was right for a change. The goal was to give customers access to the system as well.
The challenge was to not lose any functionality they had, leveraging the deep understanding of the application gained over 25 years of developing the system by themselves.
MTP looked at packaged software solutions and solutions implemented by other hospitals, but they were either too huge with options MTP did not need or too limited and unable to provide the required precise functionality.
Solution
Instead of outsourcing the coding, MTP sought to up-skill their engineers to have full control over their system and to be able to manipulate it for future challenges.
MTP’s engineers have taken their skills learnt during university and with the assistance from Lateral-gained skills in software development, adapted it into their new system.
Lateral provided a four day training course introducing LANSA. The MTP engineers soon designed a solution and attended a few more days of training, before working on the system by themselves.
We provided assistance when needed and also supported them together with their IT department when it came to setting up the servers.
