Almost three years ago we were presented with the option of implementing an ERP system for a company owned by a well-known acquaintance of us. We accepted the work even though we had scarce knowledge of the topic. We didn’t know all the complications that such a task implied or else we would have rejected the offer immediately. i.e. fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Luckily for us we are at least so stubborn as foolhardy so we decided to do it and we did it. Of course it kept us awake more than one night and I have more white hairs since then, but we learnt the lesson; dreams can be realized, but they cost lots of sleepless nights.
One of our tasks was selecting a proper ERP software that could fit the requirements and it seems that we hit the nail on the head.
Implementing one of the company’s work-flow we found out that this company was also using a proprietary web fleet management system to control the fleet of trucks that they own. This software has so far been really useful for the company, but some questions arose in my head. I thought if I could integrate it with the new ERP software to make them cooperate in certain tasks. Since this application was not open source there was not that much that I could do, and after knowing how much they charge on license fees, asking for such an integration directly to the vendor was completely out of question. My second option was looking for similar projects that could fit the requirements, but none of the solutions found could do it…
Some studies show the increasing adoption of Open Source software for business applications, but some key software is still missing, in this case a Fleet Management software. Sooner or later, this tendency will imply that some distribution and logistic companies will require this kind of software to fulfill their needs.
As the end of my studies was approaching and I needed to pick up a topic for my master thesis, I decided to develop my own Fleet Management software to fill in the gap.
With the spirit of communication, I created a web page to give more details about the project evolution.
