Case Studies

Graco is a large manufacturer of fluid management systems for use in painting, lubrication, and other applications. Kettle River worked with Graco to create the latest version of Graco’s fluid management system called Matrix 3. Matrix 3 is used to monitor the usage of fluids in automobile repair shops and fleet repair depots. Matrix 3 also has the ability to connect to dealer management systems to provide a completely automated fluid tracking and billing solution.

Brent Huhta, Graco’s project lead for the Matrix project, summarizes his experience with Kettle River this way:

“Kettle River has done an excellent job in helping Graco create a new, next-generation fluid management software product. We have found their experience, technical knowledge, and sound software engineering practices to be extremely helpful in bringing our client-server application to market. Our application required integration with Graco fluid dispensing/monitoring equipment and had to be scalable from small single-PC systems to systems consisting of dozens of networked PCs; at the same time, it needed to be user-friendly to both installer and end user, not requiring advanced IT knowledge. Our project was professionally managed and successfully delivered. As additional development personnel were needed to meet schedule, Kettle River was able to provide the necessary qualified staffing sufficient for the work. To summarize, a very positive experience.”

University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) is a public liberal arts and science degree granting institution located in Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. UPEI has a technology infrastructure that has both Oracle and Ingres databases and a large portfolio of custom built applications used to manage university operations. Kettle River assisted UPEI in reviewing of UPEI’s technology infrastructure to determine future directions for infrastructure and application development.

Kettle River reviewed the technology infrastructure during an on-site visit and subsequent interviews with UPEI staff. Kettle River then produced a report that recommended solutions for application development, development processes, business intelligence, and reporting. Kettle River also produced a sample application using Groovy and Grails to illustrate how the tools recommended could be used to migrate the existing applications to newer technology platforms.