“I won’t ever claim myself to be a full-stack developer, but Glide definitely helps me get close to it.”
Rotha Ksa is a Data Applications Engineer at Champion Industries, a commercial dishwasher business in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His team works behind the scenes to make sure that there are clean glasses and dishes everywhere — hospitals, airports, restaurant, and more. For years, their machine-testing process was totally manual.
“Before our Glide app, we were using pen and paper. You would go through and check this test sheet like you were sitting at the doctor's office. Then it got stowed away in a manila folder. And the only time it was ever looked at was when ultimately something went wrong.”
When his boss asked him to digitize this process, Rotha researched many options and landed on Glide. “The only one that stuck was Glide. It has the ability to make the apps and also it does everything I need to do. It's easy to understand.”
“People don't know enough about Glide and how easy it can make all their work.”
To start, he built a Glide app to replace their manual testing checklist. Each dishwasher model can now be checked and tested through the app. They’re listed by serial number, that way the QA team can easily cross-reference the physical model against the info in the app. All the tests are then stored, in case a technician ever needs to check a configuration or do maintenance on a specific machine.
“The Glide app really helps with making sure that the process is concrete. On the back end, we can do vendor analysis with the information that we store. We’re bridging the gap between engineering, production and service. Creating that triangle of communication so that we can get ahead of stuff. Instead of being reactionary, we can be proactive.”
Rotha plans to use Glide to simplify more processes for their field technicians and third-party installers.“ Technicians can go and complete a similar checklist. Then our warranty system, the registration and everything behind it can happen. Our third-party field technicians can get paid a lot sooner just by getting everything a lot more streamlined.” He also wants to create new apps to help customers—giving them the power to self-diagnose their own machines.“
We can start building some diagnostic tools through Glide. So like, is your machine turning on, yes or no? Machine is not turning on. All right, here's what you can check. This and this. And that can be all done through Glide.” Champion Industries’ choice to embrace new technology in an industry that still mostly relies on old methods has paid off. They’re already spreading their expertise, sharing their Glide app knowledge with their sister company in Canada.
“It's easy to kind of fall into what has been working. When you look outside the box and catch these kinds of applications, you realize how much it can help your company.”
You end up looking completely unstoppable. And you feel that sense of pride in what you do. So I'm very proud of what Glide has helped me be able to figure out here.