The better a software system is, the more productive your company is. Better software is today doing more and more of the routine tasks that used to require large quantities of manpower to accomplish. Software is however used by people. If the company is to be more productive, each of the people in the company has to be able to move more information in less time. So those people have to be the focus of the software's design.

This concept has always been a main guiding principle in formulating our design parameters. To accomplish this, we follow certain rules:

Rule 1 - Write it Yourself

All of our software was developed in-house. Take for example, Accounting. Express Accounting is a large, enterprise level accounting system that can manage any transportation company of any size. Every line of code was written in-house. We didn't buy or merge with a small software company with the objective of somehow merging our dispatching system with their accounting system. Many of our competitors have merged with many of our other competitors, all in an effort to create a system that can do all the things that our software can do. This is not how we do things. We don't partner with, merge with or buy other firms to get work done that we should rightfully be doing ourselves. At PCS Software, when we say we know transportation we mean it.

Rule 2 - Optimize the Time/Motion Equation

In other words, minimize data entry time. The best decision makers are not always great data entry clerks, so they need a system that requires the absolute minimum amount of data entry. One that puts the things they do 90% of the time within easy reach and one that doesn't require users to open several screens just to answer simple questions. Express is the most efficient system available within the transportation software industry. There is no other system that can make your company as efficient as Express can.

Rule 3 - Maintain a Consistent Design Throughout the Program

Every screen should be similar to every other screen. Not exactly the same, but similar in look and behavior. Differences should draw the user's attention to the data they intend to work with. This creates a work flow. This flow helps people to move through data entry and retrieval faster so they can spend time doing what human beings do best, making decisions.

Rule 4 - Follow Current Design Standards, to a Point

When Windows first arrived on the scene, every screen was gray. Windows 95 was the same way. Windows XP, Vista and now Windows 7 have all succeeded to present a richer graphical experience to the user. Tools are more sophisticated, interactions are more sophisticated and screens aren't all gray. Today's software uses color schemes designed to assist users by bringing the most needed items to the user's visual foreground. But not all new design elements survive over time. The good ones do but they aren't all good, i.e. dancing paperclips. We analyze any new design element before we use it. We only adopt new design elements that make system users more productive or otherwise make their experience a more positive one. We don't seek change for the sake of change. We prefer change that makes things better.