Category Archives: Case Study

Case Study

Page Builder Express, Proprietary CMS

Little Systems developed Page Builder Express (PBE), a full commercial Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP (LAMP) Content Management System (CMS), between 1999 and 2001.

See below for features, history, screenshots and example sites.

Features

  • Streamlined user-interface, including the “one-click edit” feature from the public page to the editing dashboard for Blocks, Objects and Wizards.
  • Integrated documentation and Quick-Start guide.
  • Password protected sites, with email-based password management.
  • “Wizards” for end-users regular tasks.
  • Auto-generated pages, including colour-coded site/last updated map, disclaimer page and privacy policy.
  • The Webalizer visitor statistics support.
  • Apache Dynamically Configured Mass Virtual Hosting support.
  • Administration backend, with template editor.
  • MySQL and Oracle support.

History

In 2001, Little Systems licensed PBE to Geelong Science and Technology (GSAT) for Victorian educational institutions.  In this arrangement, PBE was used for several years by Australian primary schools, high schools and a university department through to 2005, and on.

(The PBE system was only retired in 2017.  See also Credit.  See also Little Systems Services, including SchoolWebsites.net.au, and Little Systems Code, including the Open Source Builder Express user-interface plugin for WordPress.)

Screenshots

     

Example Sites (and Example Pages)

Primary School

      

     

     

      

      

Secondary School

      

   

University

     

Case Study

Accounting Systems Integration with Manufacturing Execution System (MES)

Systems integration for a manufacturing firm.

A medium-sized precision engineering firm in country Victoria, wanted their live customer and inventory data from MYOB, available in the user-interface of their manufacturing execution system (MES).

Little Systems performed information systems consulting to complete this section of the MES work.

The solution.

When the MYOB API was new (version 1), Little Systems constructed a simple PHP script for Windows/IIS to render MYOB data as XML.  This made the MYOB data available via a URL on the internal network (intranet).

Little Systems then integrated the data with the MES.  The MES was a customised Open Source Perl web application on Linux.  Little Systems developed a Perl script to read the MYOB data as XML and to populate the local PostgreSQL database with MYOB customer and inventory data.  The script was automated to run periodically.  Little Systems then integrated the data in PostgreSQL with the Open Source web application.

The result.

Live customer and inventory data from MYOB, was made available in the user-interface of the web-based manufacturing execution system (MES).

Little Systems also provided additional related consulting, to create custom and printable job instruction sheets (JIS) for the manufacturing floor.

…

Little Systems is available for consulting.  See also Services.

Little Systems can also provide consulting for an Open Source manufacturing execution system (MES) for small-to-medium sized manufacturing firms.

Contact Little Systems for a quote.