“Enhancing restaurant operations”
Restaurant companies, whether you are a single unit owner or a multi-unit corporation all suffer from the same dilemma, how do you efficiently gather information on our units in real-time and how do we use this information to increase sales and save money?

ProLogic has the answer, iCerv™ Framework for Restaurant Support. iCerv was created to provide the functionality of standard applications while offering the flexibility of integration and collaboration. It is a web based foundation that integrates data both structured and unstructured and meta-data into a common user interface.

The term framework might be a new concept to most restaurant industry executives, but in the world of other corporations, a framework as been the single most cost effective method of collaboration and data integration in the last several years.

There are three different ways of implementing a framework. One assumes that the company has existing systems such as POS, inventory, cost control, purchasing, marketing, recipe creation…in this scenario a framework would allow for the integration of the data from these systems into one common platform. The users would then be able to leverage the power of the framework to dissect the information into usable components, thus virtually eliminating time wasting processes. The user will have complete control over the data that he or she needs from one common web-based interface.

The second assumes that the company does not have any sophisticated systems in place to track data. In this scenario, the framework allows for the creation (either through custom development or packaged modules) of these systems using a common scripting language and non-proprietary data base structure. Utilizing this method, companies have complete control over the systems functionality and can design the interface to fit very specific needs.

A third and more common method employed when designing a framework is a company has a combination of the first two scenarios. With the help of a framework, companies can take advantage of the data stored in the existing systems, but utilize the framework to add missing or custom functionality. The framework also allows the systems to be integrated into a web-interface, eliminating the need for users to access multiple applications to perform a single task.

iCerv is an enterprise level scalable application platform that features seamless integration capabilities and a snap-in architecture for business application development. It allows users to not only see the data but to act on the data. Its design provides the base functionality for building applications in a stateless web-based environment.

iCerv features customizable modules that can be added to the framework in substitution of an existing system or to subsidize an existing application. These modules include:

• Purchasing and Inventory Control, including warehousing
  
• Food Costing and Recipe Creation, including production
  
• Document Management and Report Creation
  
• Hospitality Financials
  
• Forecasting and Sales Tracking
  
• Marketing and Customer Relations including CASE™ (Contest and Survey Engine)

iCerv can help promote an increase in business revenue by allowing collaboration and interaction on an enterprise wide level, extending to encompass outside franchise units and vendors. iCerv is a fast, proven and cost effective method that allows you to spend less time learning and more time working.