ERPGAP Blog / Customer Case Dulles Glass
Customer Case Dulles Glass

Customer Case Dulles Glass


Closer look into Dulles Glass Project


In any industry today, time is of the essence. Businesses need streamlined processes to save time and deliver on their promises. Unnecessary problems, bad communication and downtime can cost a company time, money and even their reputation.

But how do you find a simple way to improve all the different processes in a modern business? Also, you don’t want to use multiple resources and software products that end up complicating your workflow, rather than improving it.

In a remarkable way, Odoo has the capacity to simplify processes and enable improvements throughout a company’s activities. Bonus: it works on ALL fronts. Whether it’s production, sales or communication - or all of them - you’re worried about, Odoo has an app or feature that can assist.

As an example, let’s look at the project launched at Dulles Glass, where Odoo transformed their work methods for the better. In this case, there were impressive results that affected everything from time management to revenue and even their customer experience.



What is Dulles Glass?

Dulles Glass is an American based company dedicated to high-quality glass fabrication. They can be found in-store in Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C. metro areas.

This company fabricates a wide variety of glass, from premade templates to custom-made. It’s all hand-crafted with great care and they’re empowered to deliver exceptional results because they have a team of trained professionals and state-of-the-art equipment.

Customers can expect more than your typical glass products from this brand. Dulles Glass fabricates quality glass mirror products, with the support of the latest technology for cutting edges. They also use their powerful tempering oven to make glass stronger and safer. This durability is why customers can now invest in features like glass tabletops, shower doors and even shelves. Even a kitchen can be transformed with a glass backsplash.

Customers can order items of almost any size and shape, all with peace of mind that it’s a smart long term investment. This is especially welcome when glass is required for professional applications. Many corporate offices, restaurants and gyms have benefited from partnering with Dulles Glass, either for decor purposes, or to use mirrors and similar items to reflect light & brighten up a room.

One of the key factors of Dulles Glass’ values is customer support. It’s a number one priority and to facilitate this, customer questions are handled with immediacy and care via phone or email. But the brand has proven that even in today’s fast paced business world, it’s still possible to provide a personal touch. Dulles Glass representatives will visit customers’ spaces in order to determine the best possible solution in terms of glass thickness, the tint, cutouts to simplify installation and even hardware finishes.

Dulles Glass also has a revolutionary online store. This is where you go to request glass products, no matter what your requirements are. The online portal makes ordering a custom glass or mirror a simple task.

Lastly, customers appreciate that our glass or mirror is protected by a multi-year warranty.

It’s clear: this company manages to provide a 360° service. So, how do they stay in control of all these aspects of their business to consistently deliver quality service?



Dulles Glass & ERPGAP: The Perfect Partnership

You can imagine that all these manufacturing, marketing and client service processes are complex and special in their own way, requiring workflows that really work. This is the reason why Odoo is the perfect solution for this company: both for the company and clients’ benefit. We make sure that time-consuming tasks are turned into time-saving ones, facilitating all these complex processes of creating the perfect glass.

Odoo - Dulles Glass 1 Odoo - Dulles Glass 2
Odoo - Dulles Glass 4 Odoo - Dulles Glass 3

The Project

To integrate Odoo into Dulles Glass’ workflows required a multi company project. We needed to integrate:

  • Sales
  • Manufacturing
  • Complex warehouse operations
  • Purchasing
  • CRM

The project took approximately 8 months to go live but it has kept evolving. Dulles Glass required new functionalities both on the ecommerce side and for logistics & manufacturing. This showcases one of the biggest draw cards of Odoo: the fact that one product can help you optimize multiple departments. You don’t need more than one product or vendor, so administration is minimal and employees aren’t overwhelmed with changes. Using one platform often also improves accuracy of data, because there’s no chance of human error when transferring information from one system to another.



Cross Company Scope

This integration is based on a multi-company and multi-web channel system. The challenge was to keep the manufacturing and logistics operations cohesive cross company while avoiding the pitfalls of a multi-company Odoo implementation. Multi-company implementations have some challenges, such as:

  • Managing intercompany processes
  • Product traceability
  • Security restrictions

It requires some creativity to overcome these obstacles so that the process works seamlessly. Let’s look at some stand out features that show how we managed to accomplish this with Dulles Glass.

Odoo - Glass table tops

Important Victories Made Possible by Odoo

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP)

DGM has a multi-system integration between CAM/CAD and Odoo. This is made possible via a message broker. A message broker is a type of program that prevents decoupling when different applications need to communicate in order to get the job done.This is essential when you already have one system and you need to implement an additional one that’s most likely using a different programming language. Thanks to Odoo’s message broker, you can get more done without any fear of your different programs not communicating with each other.

Helpful Integrations

With Odoo, integration is easy. Thanks to RabbitMQ, the message broker mentioned above, Dulles Glass had the option to integrate many third party systems. There’s no need to discard programs or resources that already work. Effective integration uses that as the foundation and simply improves, while making sure everything works well as a unit.


We also integrated Zebra Printer using CUPS servers. This saves users a lot of time especially in the shipping department instead of using print dialog on their computer now they print with one click)

Another integration we can mention is Amazon and Walmart. Selling on third party websites is very easy with Odoo since you can find integrations on the community.

Easier Checkout

Dulles Glass enjoyed the benefit of a new, simplified checkout that works faster thanks to the following workflow:

  • You can log in, create an account or check out as a guest. Users don’t need accounts, so more clients are likely to use the service.
  • Easily add shipping and billing address.
  • Select payment method and pay.
  • Shipping integrations with Fedex and UPS (this has been really helpful for DG, before Odoo shipping department had to do duplicate/manual entry to UPS/Fedex software, now with one click it’s possible to generate shipping labels) (also the shipping cost is calculated on the checkout as well as customers address is validated this prevents incorrect address entry, believe me it happens very often)

For users that do have an account, the checkout works with just a single page. This shows a summary of what is in the cart, the preferred payment and the shipping method. You can add anything to the shopping cart and pay with just one step.

This simple process is sure to motivate clients to come back for more orders. But whether a Dulles Glass user has an account or not, the workflow is user-friendly.

Odoo - Easier Checkout

Smart Integrations for Smart Packaging

As mentioned, Odoo integrates with multiple processes, even manufacturing. During the Dulles Glass Project, Odoo was integrated with the machine responsible for cutting cardboard packaging, namely PACKSIZE. This makes on demand packaging a reality.

Since the company produces custom products, you can imagine that packaging can become a complicated process to manage. But with Odoo that works across the entire production process, this is simplified. Odoo takes the product’s dimensions and tells the machine exactly how to cut the cardboard, limiting mistakes and preventing waste. One of the most important benefits of this integration is not entering box dimensions and weight manually. With this integration the machine tells us the final box dimensions and weight then Odoo creates packages automatically which gets shipped using Fedex and UPS integrations in Odoo. This integration alongside UPS/Fedex and Zebra Printer streamlined our packing and shipping process significantly.

Odoo - Smart Packaging 1 Odoo - Smart Packaging 2

Integration with Glass Cutting Optimization Software

Thanks to Odoo, Dulles Glass has automated their glass optimization software entries. This process was being handled manually, which is open to errors, mistakes, also it was very time consuming. Now with the help of Odoo, all information is transferred digitally and Dulles Glass was able to streamline their production planning, scheduling and overall manufacturing process significantly.



Handheld Terminal Barcode Scanners

Another huge improvement that Odoo brought in order fulfillment and manufacturing process was the introduction of handheld terminals. These handheld terminals provide incredible flexibility to warehouse and factory employees. Instead of using stationary computers, now Dulles Glass’s pickers are following the optimized warehouse routes to complete their picking process and print out labels on the go from their handheld terminals. On the factory floor, Dulles Glass’s machine operators can move freely from one machine to another and update their current machine in the system using the handheld terminals with barcode scanners.



In Conclusion

The Dulles Glass Project is only one example of how Odoo transforms modern businesses. It’s one product for all departments and with its many custom options, it can suit any unique requirements you may have.

Want to find out how you can benefit from Odoo? Talk to us.

Odoo - Conclusion
Customer Case

After our extensive research for our ERP system implementation we decided to go ahead with ERPGAP because they understood our complex requirements as well as time lines and provided realistic expectations. Now we’ve been working with them for a couple years and we couldn’t be happier. We consider ERPGAP as part of our Dulles Glass family, they helped us modernize and streamline our complicated order fulfillment process. With Odoo, we saw tangible results, our productivity, output numbers and customer satisfaction have multiplied as well as we reduced our defect rate significantly. Odoo and ERPGAP helped us open new doors for us to improve our business.

Mithat Cakmak

Project Manager


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About us

Odoo is a management software that fits all sizes. This software is for small, medium and large companies. Your company's information is all in one place. You don't have to go back and forth to check something. All apps have real-time access to your database.

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