Australian Plastic Profiles Web Site and Content Management System

Launch Site

Client Introduction

Established in 1972, Australian Plastic Profiles (APP) has grown to be one of the world's leading manufacturers of PVC profiles for the Point-of-Sale, Electrical and Building industries.

Project Overview

After developing the original Australian Plastic Profiles web site in 2000, Switch I.T. was again approached to coordinate the next phase in the APP online strategy. After careful competitive analysis and a number of meetings with senior APP staff, Switch I.T. proposed a complete web site redesign and a comprehensive overhaul to the existing web site structure.

The proposal aimed at providing much more company and product information online to existing and potential customers, as well as empowering APP staff to maintain the site in-house, ensuring timely and accurate content.

The new strategy resulted in the following:

• Improved Interface and User Experience
  A much faster, usable and professional web site interface that is more consistent with the APP brand.
  
  
• Effective Communication Channel
  APP can now publish news announements, update company information, branches, distributors and other content in-house quickly and easily.
  
  
• Huge product listing
  Detailed information on hundreds of products is now available online, including comprehensive product specifications, photos, installation instructions and more, all of which is easily maintained by APP staff.
  
  
• Powerful Content Management System
  The entire web site was build on our secure SwitchBack Content Management Solution. This systems allows APP staff to maintain the entire web site in-house.
  
  
• Dynamic Brochure Generation
  The combination of the number of APP products and their dynamic nature meant keeping a brochure up to date was a costly and time consuming task. To solve this problem, Switch I.T. developed a dynamic brochure that is automatically generated from the web site product database. Every time even the smallest change is made to an APP product, the product brochure is automatically regenerated on the server in an attractive PDF format. This process ensures the web site and the product brochure are always consistent and up to date in an incredibly cost-effective manner.
  
  
• Scalability
  The overhaul resulted in a scalable infrastructure that can be expanded in the future to include other product lines and increased functionaility such as a secure customer extranet.

Technologies
Client Side	HTML, DHTML, JavaScript
Server Side	C#, XML, Dynamic PDF Component
Database	SQL Server 2000
Platform/OS	IIS, Windows 2000
Switch I.T. Components
Content Management	SwitchBack Content Management System
PDF	Dynamic PDF Brochure Generating Component