Case Studies
Background
North Carolina Farms is a family-owned wholesale greenhouse business that provides starter plants to garden centres and greenhouses across North America. Their plants are used as raw materials in retail products like pots and planters. With a reputation for quality and excellent customer service, the company has been a trusted supplier in the horticulture industry for decades.
Challenge
Due to outdated internal processes and legacy software, North Carolina Farms wanted to increase the efficiency of their order tracking and inventory management. Their legacy system was no longer meeting the evolving needs of their growing client base, prompting the need for a custom solution to streamline workflows and improve customer service.
Solution
Covalience provided a dedicated development team of PHP engineers, UI/UX designers, QA engineers, DevOps engineers, and a project coordinator to design and build a custom application tailored to North Carolina Farms’ operational needs.
Industry
- Agriculture
Technologies
- PHP
- Laravel
- MySQL
- Docker
- CI/CD Pipelines
One of the biggest advantages of working with Covalience is their collective knowledge. Instead of trying to hire separate experts in system administration, PHP, front-end development, and design, I simply reach out to our team lead, and they connect me with the right person. It saves time and ensures we always have the expertise we need.
Mick DonahueOwner, North Carolina Farms
Implementation
Over a period of seven months, Covalience’s team worked closely with North Carolina Farms to deliver a modern, user-friendly system with key functionalities, including:
- Real-Time Inventory Management: Unified inventory tracking across all locations, improving stock visibility and reducing errors.
- Order Processing Automation: Simplified order workflows, reducing manual tasks and improving order accuracy.
- Enhanced Reporting Tools: Provided actionable insights to help the team make data-driven decisions and improve customer service.
- App Security Enhancements: Rebuilt the checkout process with secure scripts, ensuring PCI compliance and safeguarding transactions by integrating directly with authorized.net.
- Server Optimization: Consolidated four servers into two, cutting costs by 50%. Implemented Docker with multiple containers to enhance efficiency and maintain performance.
- Automated Deployment & Enhanced Security: Integrated CI/CD pipelines to automate the deployment process, eliminating the need for manual server access and strengthening security.
- Application Segmentation & Stability: Separated the WordPress content site and the order management system, preventing crashes and ensuring continuous uptime for both platforms.
Results
The new application has significantly improved efficiency and business growth for North Carolina Farms, delivering the following benefits:
- Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Faster, more precise order fulfilment has improved customer experience and streamlined operations.
- Operational Efficiency: Automated workflows have reduced manual processes, increasing productivity and accuracy.
- Data-Driven Decision-Making: Real-time insights have enabled better business decisions and more effective resource management.
- Strategic Leadership Focus: By minimizing time spent on operational tasks, leadership has been able to prioritize long-term growth initiatives.
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