01
Access management system
- Why
- The company did have an IT department, but an earlier IT misstep — plus cost and confidentiality concerns — made me unwilling to hand over the critical checkpoints. So I carved them out: not outsourced, not given to internal IT, built in Excel and Access. It worked well; the cost was a bulkier, less tidy process.
- How
- Built tables, forms, queries and reports in Access, putting inventory, manufacturing orders and R&D data into one database, with permissions, backups and versions maintained by me.
- Result
- Critical data stayed in my hands, and daily lookups and monthly reports no longer meant stitching sheets. The limits were explicit too — single machine, difficult collaboration, manual sync.
- Role
- Requirements, data model, forms and reports; self-taught throughout