Carrier Corporation Optimizes Its HVAC Design and Sales Process with an Automated Sales Solution

Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Customer Solution

Case study

we predict this will increase productivity and enhance the quality of the HVAC solutions we provide to our customers.

Designing HVAC control systems can be a time-consuming process involving complex diagrams, documents, and data. The worlds leading manufacturer of HVAC systems, Carrier Corporation, is automating and optimizing its HVAC control design and sales process using the ComfortDRAW solutiona Microsoft .NET application developed by Visimation, Inc. on the Microsoft Office Visio 2003 platform. Using this tool, sales engineers can easily create HVAC control system diagrams that include equipment and pricing data, and then generate estimates and quotes from these data-rich Visio diagrams. Consulting engineers can document integrated operational sequences with diagrams and generate reports from them. Installers can set up HVAC systems using themall with one tool and the same project data throughout the entire simplified process. With this solution and the Microsoft technology backing it up, Carrier Corporation predicts diagramming HVAC control systems will be less cumbersome, and it will increase employee productivity by 1020%, generate estimates and quotes 25% faster, and deliver

Visio technology and standard shapes tied to real-world data create an unparalleled environment in which Carrier salespeople, project managers, consulting engineers, and installers can share vital HVAC project information. As a result, Rich Remke AC systems to its customers more quickly.

UATION SOLUTION BENEFITS

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The ComfortDRAW solution integrates all project tasks, diagrams, documents, and data related to the design and sale of HVAC control systems. It connects HVAC control system diagrams to equipment and pricing data so team members can generate reportssuch as estimates, quotes, and bills of materialsfrom those diagrams.

Optimizes the design and sale process and makes HVAC control system diagramming less cumbersome Increases employee

productivity by 1020% Delivers estimates and sales

quotes to customers 25% faster Lays a solid foundation for

process evolution and future Controls Product Manager Carrier Corporation

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CUSTOMER PROFILE BUSINESS SIT

Carrier Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and equipment. With its headquarters in Farmington, Connecticut, USA, Carrier Corporation has more than 45,000 employees in more than 171 countries worldwide.

Carrier Corporaoptimize the desprocess for its Hsystems by usinautomated solutdocument, and for those systemmust enable evethe same data tentire processand sale all the installation.

software development

Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning more than 100 years ago. Today, Carrier Corporationthe company that bears his nameleads the world in the manufacture and sale of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) products and systems. Carrier Corporation stays at the forefront of the HVAC industry by constantly developing innovative products and streamlining its processes by using the latest hardware, software, and Internet technology.

The design and sale of commercial HVAC control systems is a process Carrier Corporation works on constantly to optimize across the entire internal organization and among external partners. Right now, because there are many different ways to design HVAC control systems, team members use several different tools for tasks throughout the process. Sales engineers often create diagrams manually or with various tools, and then enter data separately into spreadsheetsa time-consuming, cumbersome process in which people often create redundant diagrams. And, engineers must manually synchronize those diagrams with project data.

Carrier Corporation seeks to optimize this process by making the diagramming of HVAC control systems less cumbersome. It needs one robust, flexible tool that integrates project diagrams with data so that everyone involved in taking a system to market can use the same data to design HVAC control systems, generate accurate reportssuch as sales quotes and bills of materialsfrom those diagrams, and even use the diagrams downstream as part of visual documentation packages for HVAC system installations.

In addition, this tool must use the latest software and Internet technology to provide a solid foundation for future

development, integrate well with the standard suite of Carrier Corporation software tools, and support user groups with different levels of process knowledge in various hardware environments.

Carrier Corporation needs a tool that facilitates the HVAC control system design, delivery, and commissioning process, so team participants can focus on solving customers needs.

Jim Cullen Senior Manager of Sales Tools and

Software Carrier Corporation

Meeting this need will be a challenge, but its crucial to the businesss success, as Jim Cullen, Carrier Corporation Senior Manager of Sales Tools and Software points out: Carrier Corporation needs a tool that facilitates the HVAC control system design, delivery, and commissioning process, so team participants can focus on solving customers needs.

Visimation, Inc.a Microsoft Office Visio Solution Provider and Microsoft Certified Partneris up to the challenge. It is working with Carrier Corporation to optimize the design and sales process for HVAC control systems with a single toolthe ComfortDRAW solutionbased on Microsoft Office Visio 2003. Using this tool, everyone involved in the design, sale, distribution, and installation of HVAC control systems can use the same project data to design the systems, create estimates and sales quotes, generate detailed reports, and install the systems.

Quickly Diagram HVAC Control Systems with Ready-Made Shapes Visimation integrated the entire interface and full diagramming capabilities of Visio 2003 into the ComfortDRAW application, so sales engineers can easily create HVAC control system diagrams by dragging Visio shapes that are tailor-made for Carrier Corporation onto the drawing page. Sometimes all it takes is one shape, such as the Constant Volume Air Handler, and the header and footer information thats already on the drawing page, to create an entire diagram.

Associate Equipment and Pricing Data with HVAC Control Diagrams Each tailor-made Carrier shape contains custom properties that are specific to that shape, such as product specification, operation sequence, and pricing. After sales engineers drag shapes onto the drawing page, they can associate up-to-date Carrier datastored in Microsoft Office Access databaseswith these custom properties. This data is then also associated with the Visio diagram.

Sales engineers just right-click a shape, and then click Properties on the shortcut menu to open the Properties window and enter data. They can choose data from custom Carrier databases that contain job-specific data, user-defined data, and up-to-date HVAC control system data.

The ComfortDRAW solution also associates data with some Carrier shapes right as sales engineers drag them onto the drawing so the engineers dont have to do it manually. For example, the solution associates data with every component in the Constant Volume Air Handler shape as its dragged onto the drawing page.

And, theres no need for sales engineers to worry about creating HVAC control system diagrams that contain incompatible equipment. Using the HVAC system configuration rules associated with the custom Visio shapes and templates, the ComfortDRAW solution wont let that happen. Engineers can easily create consistent HVAC system diagrams that are error free and packed with useful project data, which project team members can view in the appropriate Properties window.

With the easy-to-use Microsoft Office Visio 2003 interface and powerful diagramming capabilities in the ComfortDRAW solution, sales engineers can quickly assemble diagrams using custom-made Carrier shapes, and view the data associated with those shapes. Engineers can even modify shapes with easy-to-use Visio drawing tools.

Generate Reports from Data-Rich HVAC Control System Diagrams At this stage, the full power of the ComfortDRAW solution becomes apparent. Using this tool and its XML data-sharing capabilities, sales engineers can generate equipment lists, bills of materials, and sales quotesas familiar Microsoft Office Word documents or Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheetsdirectly from these data-rich Visio diagrams. Gone are the days of manually entering data into spreadsheets and creating redundant documents. This one simple automated task streamlines a large chunk of the design and sale process for HVAC control systems, and increases the accuracy of all documents used throughout the design and sales process.

Collaborate Among Team Members to Reach a Final Bid for the Project During the rest of the process, team members use the ComfortDRAW solution to revise project diagrams and documents, create cost estimates, and so on. The new reviewing features in Visio 2003 come in handy at this point. Sales engineers can capture and track comments and revisions made to diagrams by other team members on markup overlays and view them in the Reviewing pane.

Each time a sales engineer revises a diagram, team members can easily generate new reports based on the revised diagrams and the accurate, up-to-date data. Finally, Carrier Corporation bids on the project, and the sales engineer generates the final project quote from the ComfortDRAW solution based on the final design documents, project schedule, and overall project conditions and requirements.

Share Project Diagrams, Data, and Documents with External Partners The optimized process doesnt end with the product sale; it continues into the construction phase among external partners. Controls project managers can

use the ComfortDRAW solution to create submittals, equipment lists, wiring lists, purchase order requests, installation documents, detailed work estimates, and as-built diagrams of the HVAC control system, which serve as visual, step-by-step representations of the installation process. And, again, during this step, partners use the same data that internal team members used throughout the rest of the project.

Visio technology enables Carrier Corporation to use the ComfortDRAW solution with the broadest possible audience.

Rich Remke Controls Product Manager

Carrier Corporation

As Rich Remke, Carrier Corporation Controls Product Manager, says, Visio technology enables Carrier Corporation to use the ComfortDRAW solution with the broadest possible audience. Standard shapes tied to real-world data create an unparalleled environment in which Carrier salespeople, project managers, consulting engineers, and installers can share vital HVAC project information. This integrated approach ensures that the process and all team participants throughout the process are as productive and accurate as possible all the way to the end of the project when the customer flips the first switch.

Carrier Corporation predicts it will automate and optimize its HVAC control system design and sales process using one tool and the same data throughout the entire process to design, document, and report on HVAC control systems. Using the ComfortDRAW tool, and the Microsoft Office Visio 2003 technology incorporated into it, Carrier Corporation predicts it will realize the following additional benefits.

Makes HVAC Control System Diagramming Less Cumbersome The Visio 2003 visual work environment makes the ComfortDRAW tool flexible so that team members can use to create a variety of HVAC control system diagrams. For participants who are new to the process, its easy to learn how to work

within this visual environment. And, for those who already use Visio for other diagramming tasks, the ComfortDRAW tool provides a familiar Visio work environment. As a result, this visual environment makes the team diagramming process more efficient and makes it easier for all team members to communicate their design intent to HVAC control system experts.

Carrier Corporation predicts that everyone in its sales force and many external partners, such as consulting engineers and installers, will rapidly adopt the ComfortDRAW tool into their daily routine. Widespread adoption will enable Carrier Corporation to quickly and effectively design HVAC control systems, more efficiently document them, and ensure that the work effort is fully coordinated, especially for large complex systems.

Delivers Estimates and Sales Quotes to Customers Faster The optimized design and sales process will have positive repercussions throughout the organization. Employee productivity, efficiency, and accuracy will significantly increase. Tasks that used to involve disparate tools or were performed manually will be automated and performed with one tool, which Carrier Corporation predicts will save its sales engineers six to eight hours on large projects, such as turnkey systems. Using one tool and the same data also dramatically increases diagram accuracy and reduces the likelihood of expensive errors being discovered during the commissioning phase. All of which, of course, increases customer satisfaction.

Standard templates and shapes that are custom-made for Carrier Corporation and organized on system-specific stencils eliminate the need to search through previous diagrams for reusable design components, thus making sales engineers more productive from the first day of the

project. And, because everyone in the process will create HVAC control system diagrams using standard Carrier shapes, all diagrams will be consistent enterprise-wide. Carrier Corporation predicts that this consistency will increase the accuracy of its diagrams and the estimates and quotes generated from them. Sales engineers will also be able to generate these accurate estimates and quotes 25 percent faster than before.

Rich Remke sums up these benefits: The ComfortDRAW solution increases productivity throughout the sales process and into the construction phase of a controls project. But the productivity gains are only one part of the story. The higher degree of accuracy in the design and the more complete project information provided to the consulting engineer, as well as the vital output available to the project managers makes the ComfortDRAW solution very valuable. It would be tough to put a number on the productivity gains associated with this tool, but a conservative number would be an increase of 10 to 20 percent in productivity.

These increases in productivity, consistency, efficiency, and accuracy all result in faster, better project quotes for the customer. An accurate, professional-looking final bid with diagrams that allow customers to easily see what theyre getting, combined with error-free quotes and bills of materials, improves customer satisfaction, speeds their buying decisions, and enables Carrier Corporation to deliver and install HVAC control systems even faster. This productive cycle drives the demand for even more Carrier HVAC products and services.

Lays a Solid Foundation for Process Evolution and Future Software Development Visimation developed the flexible ComfortDRAW application for Carrier Corporation with the Microsoft Visual

Basic .NET development system and managed code that enables data sharing between separate components through SQL statements and queries using ADO.NET. Managed code further enables these components to take advantage of Microsoft Office System software.

Each component is responsible for its own user interface and internal processing and is invoked by the controlling application. This loosely coupled software architecture, of which Visio 2003 is one component, benefits Carrier Corporation by making it possible for all of the components to reside on a client machine. Using Visio 2003 as the diagramming component, the ComfortDRAW application is easy to maintain, enhance, and deploy internally or externally to partners, and incorporate into a Microsoft software environment.

The loosely coupled architecture also makes it simple to install, improve, add, or remove components with minimal impact on the application and its users, and it meets the needs of an expanding and diverse user base. For example, engineers or developers can update the database component when new Carrier pricing information becomes available.

IT administrators can grant or deny various user groups access to different ComfortDRAW components upon installation. This comes in handy for new team members. For example, IT administrators can install only a few components for new team members so they arent overwhelmed by menu items and functionality they dont need.

Most important, the ComfortDRAW software architecture positions Carrier Corporation to take advantage of more Microsoft .NET technology for connecting information, people, systems, and devices through XML Web services to integrate the ComfortDRAW application with other Carrier business solutions. For example, the ComfortDRAW application could generate a controller download image, from which a sales engineer could generate a quote for a custom piece of Carrier equipment. Then, when the order is placed using the ComfortDRAW application, the engineer could send a configuration file to the factory, which could be downloaded into a digital controller.

Carrier Corporation is excited about deploying a solution built on Visio 2003 and the Microsoft .NET Framework because it enables us to take advantage of the power of Visio as a smart, front-end client. As a result, we expect to streamline our sales process, increase productivity, enhance the overall quality of our HVAC control system solutions, and provide these solutions to our customers in substantially less time.

Jim Cullen Senior Manager of Sales Tools and

Software Carrier Corporation

Rich Remke sums up these future plans: The Microsoft .NET Framework and .NET Services allows Carrier Corporation to leverage the ComfortDRAW application further in the future. The current version provides a wide-ranging productivity solution for our sales and operations workforce along with a comprehensive tool for our engineering and contracting clients. Future versions could incorporate the ComfortDRAW application into our quoting framework, order entry systems, and even the factory floor. Such extensive future process evolution and software development will definitely enable Carrier Corporation to eliminate administrative tasks and focus on what matters most: customers needs.

Mecih

icrosoft Office Visio 2003 is an easy-to-use diagramming application that nables business and technical professionals to document, design, ommunicate, and improve ideas, processes, and systems. For more

nformation about Microsoft Office Visio 2003, go to: ttp://www.microsoft.com/office/visio/.

Microsoft Office System:

Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Microsoft Office Word Microsoft Office Excel Microsoft Office Access

Other Microsoft software and technologies:

Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Microsoft .NET Framework

Hardware This client-based solution could be used on any type of desktop or laptop computer. Within Carrier Corporation, its typically used on Dell computers. Partners Visimation, Inc.

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/

Visimation, a Microsoft Certified Partner, develops, implements, and provides training for custom business solutions that incorporate Microsoft technology. For more information about Visimation products and services, call (425) 369-6000, or visit the Web site at: http://www.visimation.com/.

Carrier Corporation is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial and residential HVAC systems and equipment. For more information about Carrier Corporation products and services, call (800) CARRIER, or visit the Web site at: http://www.carrier.com/.

2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Microsoft, Windows, Visio, Visual Basic, .NET, and the Office logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Date Published: September 2003

Quickly Diagram HVAC Control Systems with Ready-Made ShapesAssociate Equipment and Pricing Data with HVAC Control DiagrGenerate Reports from Data-Rich HVAC Control System DiagramsCollaborate Among Team Members to Reach a Final Bid for the Share Project Diagrams, Data, and Documents with External PaMakes HVAC Control System Diagramming Less CumbersomeDelivers Estimates and Sales Quotes to Customers FasterLays a Solid Foundation for Process Evolution and Future Sof