Quest

Health Service Executive  

The Client

HSE Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS) is responsible for the processing of almost all claims for the payment of fees provided in the community by General Practitioners, Community Pharmacies, Optometrists and Dentists on behalf of the health boards for the treatment of their patients.

The PCRS have over 4.2 million persons registered as being eligible under the various schemes it administers and process in excess of 60million business transactions valued at over €3 billion annually. The PCRS has one of the three largest Oracle databases in Ireland.

Quest and the Primary Care Reimbursement Service
Quest has provided maintenance and development services for the PCRS since 1989. This has involved working closely with them as they have implemented new processes and procedures and as the services have developed and expanded. The most recent project is a web-based system to allow GPs (doctors) to submit claims directly to the PCRS and to be reimbursed accordingly. The system allows GPs to securely enter details of claims and claim allowances. All details are validated on-line against the central PCRS database ensuring accuracy, speed of processing and reduced bureaucracy. Quest set procedures in place within the PCRS to receive claims electronically from pharmacies and process these claims with the PCRS database.

At present 80% of pharmacies send in their claims using this method. This translates to about 1,000,000 claims per month involving 2.8 million business transactions. This replaces a paper-based system where pharmacies submitted batches of documents that were entered by PCRS staff and subsequently processed and paid.

Client Comment
"We are very pleased with the relationship we have developed with Quest over the years. Quest has always been supportive and responsive to our needs especially when we have needed to implement new functionality very quickly".

Patrick Burke, CEO, Primary Care Reimbursement Service

Xscape / Snozone

The Client

Xscape Ltd is an innovative entertainment company where high adrenaline sports and leisure are successfully combined with retail and food & beverage within one state of the art building, creating the ultimate entertainment destination. Incorporated within Xscape, is the UK’s largest indoor real snow slope consisting of two giant recreational slopes and one nursery slope.

In addition two climbing walls, 24 glow bowling lanes, multi-screen cinema, an interactive games arena, great cafés and restaurants and excellent shopping make the daytime experience one to remember. At night Xscape changes its face and becomes a 21st century Dine and Dance Destination.

A state-of-the-art nightclub attracting some of the top DJs in the country is complemented by some lively bars and engaging restaurants. The first Xscape destination opened in Milton Keynes in June 2000 and the first full year of trading in 2001 attracted 4.2million visitors.

The Challenge

Xscape had difficulties in processing snow slope bookings in an efficient manner. The principle reason for these difficulties was their booking system, which was a customisation of a POS system and as such wasn’t a great fit for the client’s requirements and was slow to perform. Quest Computing Ltd proposed a system that would provide Xscape with a foundation system that will be able to take and process bookings, for various outlets through multiple channels, with various payment methods.

The Solution

Through careful collaboration with the client and the best project management and development techniques Quest developed a bespoke system for the client to their specifications in just 3 months. The main features of the new system are:

• An At-A-Glance Activities and capacity view for any days bookings
• Scheduling of different types of activities on different slopes
• A complex pricing and discounts structure
• Intelligent activity searching
• Web, Front desk and Telephone bookings
• Rolling booking times of 5-minute intervals for unscheduled reservations
• Activity durations down to 15 minute intervals which relate to 5 minute timeslots on the database for future flexibility
• Print and issue of slope passes
• Credit card payments system
• Customer / Marketing database

The system is built on an Oracle 8.1.7 database running on Red Hat Linux 7.3.

Customer Comment
“We are very pleased with Quest’s development of the Xscape Ski-slope Booking system. Quest & Xscape have worked exceptionally well together and at all stages we have been kept fully up-to-date, ensuring that issues get dealt with as soon as they arise.” Quest have been supportive and responsive to our needs which have been achieved to a very high standard of delivery and implementation.”

Jane Le Surf – Service Manager

Diageo plc

The Client

With a collection of outstanding brands, Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks business. Diageo in Ireland can trace its origins and heritage to the 18th Century to the establishment of Smithwicks’s in Kilkenny in 1710 and Guinness at St. James’s Gate in 1759. Since then the business that forms Diageo operations have been at the forefront of Irish business success

Today, Diageo’s operations in Ireland have an estimated turnover of €2 billion annually, bringing the iconic brands, Guinness, Bushmills and Bailey’s Original Irish Cream, to consumers both in Ireland and in over 150 countries across the world. 

Guinness Ireland, part of the DIAGEO group has been a Quest Computing Ltd client since 1989 and has designed and developed many IT systems over the years mainly in the area of Production systems and Management Information Systems. These include:

Production Control System

Quest were commissioned to design, build and implement a Management Information System (MIS) that takes process information form the SCADA control system and stores it in an Oracle database. The MIS provides production teams and management with critical system information about the brewing and blending process, e.g. volumes in each vessel, the processes that created it, quality control information and product traceability. The system calculates over a hundred different key ratios to assist management in monitoring the process and plant efficiency and quality. Management are alerted if any of these go outside specification via email messages. 

Technology Support Laboratory System

The Technology Support Laboratory in James Gate Dublin is sent samples of products from all the Guinness breweries around the world.  These samples are tested against Guinness standards to ensure that the worldwide breweries are producing brews as close as possible to the brews produced in Ireland. The requirement was for an Internet based system that would allow sample details to be captured from anywhere in the world via the Internet.

Quest Computing build a system to allow QC results of all tests for all samples to be captured on the web as soon as they are entered into their local systems system, with different breweries only getting access to their own results.  The result information is reported on and accessed by a set of authorized users on the Guinness Internet. Management reports are produced that shows level to which Results meet specification limits and turnaround statistics.

Track & Trace system (ezytrace)

With the pending EU legislation regarding food traceability, the DIAGEO Ireland group required as system which would provide information on demand regarding the processing of Food & drink products from Raw Materials through to finished product. Quest Computing Ltd developed the ezytrace system to enable four of the DIAGEO breweries in Ireland and the UK to meet EU traceability requirements. The system dramatically reduces effort & Time required for Product Tracking.

Customer Comments

“We are very pleased with Quest’s development of systems for DIAGEO Ireland and DIAGEO UK.  Quest & DIAGEO have worked exceptionally well together and at all stages we have been kept fully up-to-date, ensuring that issues get dealt with as soon as they arise. Quest have been supportive and responsive to our needs which have been achieved to a very high standard of delivery and implementation.  They have streamlined and well documented work processes.   They have an excellent knowledge of the Drinks processing business and contribute to improving our processes for driving more efficiency into the production systems”  

Billy Power – Head of Information Systems Guinness Supply

Dublin City Council

Case Study to follow shortly.......

Arts Council England

The Client

Arts Council England is the national development agency for the arts in England, distributing public money from Government and the National Lottery. Much has changed within the organisation since it was formed following the merger of the ten independent Regional Arts Boards in 2002, however underlying this has been its unswerving commitment to delivering value to its stakeholders. Between 2006 and 2008, Arts Council England invested £1.1 billion of public money from government and the National Lottery in supporting the arts.   

The Challenge

Arts Council England sought to purchase and implement a Single Grant Management System (SGMS), which would operate across its 9 English regions. The system, which would be browser based, would supersede the various systems being used within the council across its different regions and would fulfill the following 4 high-level requirements:

• Provide a Central Contacts Repository
• Manage and automate the entire grant process across the regions
• Contain powerful MIS and Reporting features
• Have the ability to integrate with the existing financial system – Oracle Financials  

The Solution

Arts Council England already had a team of Business Analysts and Developers working on a prototyping approach prior to identifying AIMS as their preferred solution. The system’s inherent flexibility allowed the council to configure AIMS to meet all of its business requirements without the associated costs and risks involved in designing and building a bespoke system.  The council’s developers were trained in AIMS technology, enabling them to implement their prototype within the AIMS architecture, which was subsequently adopted as the standard for all future schemes.  

Once familiar with the environment, the council’s business analysts quickly mapped their business processes, rules and client organisation structures to the system. Quest’s development and implementation team dovetailed with their counterparts on the Council’s project team, while Quest’s senior Project Manager was based on-site, three days each week for the duration of the project. This collaboration ensured the project was completed in the fastest and most effective manner.  

The system was phased in over a 9 month period – on schedule and within budget. It currently handles more than 800 users in nine locations across England.