Steven Sugg

[back to resume] Steven Sugg 3544 Winchell Road Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122 (216) 991-2682 home (216) 533-0486 mobile steve@sugg.ws
Below, please find a list of the major IT projects that I have led and/or managed. Select projects have more detailed descriptions below. Hyperlinks to the detailed descriptions of those select projects can be found in the summary list. Summary List of Projects
Integrated Billing System Reliance Electric Euclid, Ohio Project Manager Windows 95, Windows NT Server, UNIX, Sybase, SQL, PowerBuilder Decision Support System Lubrizol Wickliffe, Ohio Project Manager/Senior Designer Windows 95, Windows NT Server, UNIX, Sybase, SQL, PowerBuilder P&L Forecasting System Euclid, Ohio Project Manager/Senior Designer Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Sybase, SQL, PowerBuilder Time & Expense, Entry & Billing Morrison Knudsen Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager/Senior Designer Windows 95, Windows NT Server, SQL, MS Access Labor Distribution/Cost System Princeton Institute of Management/Lubrizol Wickliffe, Ohio Project Manager/Developer Windows 3.1, UNIX, Sybase, SQL, PowerBuilder Image File Management/Workflow American Greetings Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager/Designer/Developer Macintosh OS, Novell, Hypercard High Volume Image Storage/Retrieval American Greetings Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager/Designer/Developer Windows 3.1, Macintosh OS, Sybase, Omnis 7 Directory Analysis Tool American Greetings Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager/Designer/Developer Macintosh OS, Novell, 4th Dimension Order Entry System Transfer Express Mentor, Ohio Project Manager/Senior Designer Windows 3.1, Windows NT Server, MS SQL Server, C, PowerBuilder Stock Prices/E-Mail/Electronic Article Information Agent TRW Lyndhurst, Ohio Project Manager Macintosh OS, C, SmallTalk Handheld Visitor Tracking System TRW Lyndhurst, Ohio Developer Apple Newton	Conference/Seminar Registration Conferon Twinsburg, Ohio Project Manager Windows 3.1, Visual FoxPro Photocopier Data Collection and Billing Xerox/Cleveland Clinic Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager/Developer Windows 3.1, MS Access Point of Sale Analysis Strang Corporation Cleveland, Ohio Developer Windows 3.1, MS Excel, Visual Basic for Applications Project/Manpower Tracking Firestone Akron, Ohio Project Manager Windows 3.1, Oracle, SQL, PowerBuilder Trucking/Rail Shipments Tracking US Steel Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Project Manager Windows 3.1, Sybase, SQL, DB2, PowerBuilder Medical Image Collection/Storage Picker International Cleveland, Ohio Project Manager Macintosh OS, C, 68000 Assembly Recruiting Contacts Database Christian & Timbers Pepper Pike, Ohio Project Manager Macintosh OS, 4th Dimension Mailing List Maintenance British Petroleum Cleveland, Ohio Developer Macintosh OS, FoxBase Plus/Mac Electronic Rolodex British Petroleum Cleveland, Ohio Developer Macintosh OS, Hypercard $mart $ales Point of Sale Electronic Catalog Seybold Solutions Pepper Pike, Ohio Developer Macintosh OS, 4^th Dimension Inventory Control/Pricing System Seybold Solutions Pepper Pike, Ohio Developer Macintosh, MAI Basic Four, 4^th Dimension
Detailed Descriptions of Select Projects Integrated Billing System - Reliance Electric, Euclid, Ohio [back to summary] I managed the design, development, and implementation of a comprehensive integrated client/server billing system to replace Reliance Electric's existing mainframe-based system. The project began with a Joint Application Design (JAD) session involving all stakeholders and primary application end-users. From concept to completion, the project lasted 14 months and involved 6 developers and 2 database administrators at its peak. At project conclusion, Reliance successfully turned off its mainframe billing system and implemented the client/server system. Major issues addressed: Creating and maintaining buy-in from end-users, related department heads (Accounting, Sales, Order Entry), and other project stakeholders. Understanding all existing business information flows related to the billing processes, and incorporating (or not) those flows within the new system. Creating a graphical user interface that would be understood by the users. This system represented the first such graphical business application for all end-users. Interfacing with legacy mainframe systems (Customer Master Databases, Order Entry, Accounting). Creating numerous exception processing rules. About 20% of all bills had special conditions that had to be identified, processed, and reported. Creating high-level on-line (and printed) management reports. Creating the actual printed bills, sorted according to mail-room specifications, including customer, zip code, and postage requirements. Performance of batch processing was crucial, as the system had to handle up to 2,000 invoices daily. Decision Support System - The Lubrizol Corporation, Wickliffe, Ohio [back to summary] I was the project manager/technical lead for a large client/server application involving a team of six programmers within Lubrizol's Information Systems Development Department. The project involved designing, developing, and implementing a decision support system for use by the sales managers and sales people within Lubrizol. I served as both a technical expert and as a project manager to oversee the development being done by the Lubrizol employees as well as providing knowledge transfer to Lubrizol's internal staff. Major issues addressed: Ease of use through graphical user interface - Most of the intended users had little or no microcomputer application experience. Cross-Platform operability - The program needed to be implemented on the Macintosh and on IBM PC's and clones running Windows 3.0. Client/Server technology - The program needed to access the corporate sales and cost data within the DB2 tables on the IBM mainframes. Establishing a set of interface and coding guidelines to facilitate multiple programmers simultaneously developing the application for better inter-module integration, constancy, and future maintenance. I designed the overall structure of the system, much of the user interface, and several key functional components that were to be used throughout the program. I developed and documented user interface guidelines, common library functions, and cross-platform anomalies (and how to program around them), which the programmers used during development, so that the overall program operated efficiently and had a standard look and feel. I designed and helped to implement a version control system within the project. The version control system was used to control development of the software and to automatically detect and inform the end users when their software was out of date. This was later extended to automatically update the user's software by downloading the current version from the mainframe. I also developed the relevant DAL scripts used on both platforms to establish the client/server connection including error detection and correction for situations such as incorrect or expired passwords. Time & Expense Entry & Billing - Morrison Knudsen, Cleveland, Ohio [back to summary] I managed the design and development of a client/server application to track time and expense data. Morrison Knudsen is a large contract construction company specializing in very large projects, such as dams, refineries, and power plants. All of Morrison Knudsen's contracts are based on "cost plus", and so the timely and accurate entry of labor hours and expenses is extremely critical to their business operations. I was the project manager and senior designer for this project, involving 3-4 consultants from NewMedia and 2 IT employees from Morrison Knudsen. The application needed to allow project managers to set up their own line items for each project, accept manual and batch entries for labor hours and expenses and needed to interface with several other computer systems within Morrison Knudsen, including Personnel (for labor rates), and Accounting (for billing). Major issues addressed: Integration of team members - Since this project involved developers from Morrison Knudsen, as well as NewMedia, issues involving project team dynamics were crucial - motivation, delegation of tasks, accountability, and mind-share among the team members. Interfacing with legacy systems. Security - E.g., only project managers could change project line items, one employee could not enter hours for another employee, and accounting issues to satisfy audit requirements. Adhering to strict accounting practices - Since this system was so closely tied to Morrison Knudsen's billing systems, procedures and policies, adhering to strict accounting practices was crucial. For example, once an entry was committed to the billing system, to make a correction, the Time Entry system needed to create reversing journal voucher entries before creating the correcting entries. Database platform independence - Although Morrison Knudsen was currently using Oracle and Peachtree Accounting, both were potentially going to be replaced within 3 years, so our Time Entry system needed to have very clean interfaces to these systems, so that minimal effort would be needed if they decided to switch platforms. Labor Distribution/Cost System - Princeton Institute of Management, The Lubrizol Corporation , Wickliffe, Ohio [back to summary] I managed the design and development of a cross platform program to track projects, including comparison of work completed to the original estimates, and graphing capabilities. Major issues addressed: Ease of use through graphical user interface - Most of the intended users had little or no microcomputer application experience. Cross platform operability - Application had to run under the Macintosh OS and Windows-based computers. Understanding and Implementation of a theoretical model developed by the Princeton Institute of Management. Security - Application had to prevent users from altering the data, once entered. Image File Management - American Greetings, Cleveland, Ohio [back to summary] I managed, designed and developed a series of file management tools to be used by the artists, art directors, and the computer specialists assigned to directly support the artists. The project involved designing, developing, and implementing a set of software tools to accomplish three goals: Allow users to quickly locate a file or folder residing on any of 11 Novell servers (approximately 16 Gigabytes). Generate automated reports to identify duplicate folders located on any of the servers. Provide a means to control, track and record operations such as moving, copying, replacing, and deleting files and folders. Major issues addressed: Ease of use through a familiar graphical user interface. Establishing proper file management workflow procedures to facilitate the control and tracking of specific jobs. Client/Server technology - The file management program was designed to record the various file operations centrally, so that a particular file or folder could be tracked from one user or department to another. I integrated existing software tools and applications with customized code to create three specific tools: An implementation of an existing package called "On Location" which allowed the users to instantly locate any file or folder on any of the servers. A customized 4th Dimension database. This application was used to import the data generated from "On Location", analyze the data, and to generate reports on such things as available disk space, duplicate folders, and wasted disk space. A customized application that allowed the user to move, copy, replace, and delete folders located on the servers and local hard disks. This application was developed using HyperCard as the front-end, and used many external commands to provide the necessary functions to perform the operations and to centrally track and record the operations. The application was designed to act as a client to a Sybase server, allowing for central tracking of the job folders.
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