Finance specialist

1987 to 1988

Finding the killer app: By 1987, Northrop was a major player in the aircraft industry and subcontracting most their work. However, their legacy computing systems were not handling the job of ‘subcontracting’ very well. A subcontract order is a collaborative effort between different organizations. It contains engineering specifications and financial schedules in addition to the terms and conditions worked out between buyer and seller. I felt ‘client server’ technology would be better suited to the task. Each organization could prepare it’s own section on a desktop computer (client) and submit it to a Subcontract Administrator. The Subcontract Administrator would assemble different sections, at their workstation (server), and create the completed agreement. It sounded like a ‘killer app’ to me. However, client server technology was relatively new and management considered it risky. I prepared a cost-benefit analysis showing how much money they could save by eliminating one nagging task – re-typing standard inspection-notes on every purchase order. In return, I received a small budget to build a working demonstration.

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