Total System Replacement - Against a Deadline!

Senior Tube Products, now part of Fortune 500 company Tyco, was formed as a management buy-out from the TI Group. The company is the leading UK manufacturer of precision welded steel tube, and supplies a wide spectrum of customers and applications ranging from bicycle tubes, to automotive components, to commercial construction and traffic control systems. These products are sold under a variety of different brand names.

Background

After the buy-out, the IT team had twelve months to replace their complete Financial, Supply Chain, and Production systems from their previous owner's mainframe computer. To add focus, stiff penalties would be enforced if the deadline was missed.

Prior to the sale of the company, the Group IT Department handled all of the company's computing requirements. The company's main business applications had been built around Group modules, which were then tailored to meet the specific needs of each operating company. The applications ran on an IBM mainframe, which was owned by the Group.

Reducing Costs

At the time, the costs of operating on this platform were very high, and were proving to be a burden on the business. In addition, the applications were inflexible and would constrain the future of the business. The new management team were forward thinking and saw its IT systems as an important element in changing the way that the business operated, and for taking advantage of new ideas and concepts.

The previous system had in fact met most of the users' requirements, so any new system had to provide at least as much as before. It also had to be sufficiently flexible to adapt alongside the business.

The Head of IT and his team were intimately familiar with the business, having many years of experience to draw upon, and an excellent working relationship with the business users. Changing platforms held potential risks, however there was no sadness in moving away from the mainframe. They felt that a key to their success would be to capitalise on their business knowledge without having to become technical experts on another computing platform. This became one of their focal points in the evaluation process.

The IT team began with a traditional approach to changing platforms, and evaluated packaged solutions to replace the Manufacturing, Accounting, and Sales systems. It soon became evident that, apart from the accounting system, none of the available packages would meet their requirements. Therefore, the team purchased a standard financial package whilst they considered alternative solutions for the other systems.

It soon became apparent that it was impossible to develop a new system with their in-house resources, and within the constraints of the deadline. Therefore, they began to look at working with a third party.

After considering their various options, the team decided on the solution presented by Appligenics.

Why Appligenics?

Appligenics was favoured for several reasons -

• SERVICES
  With tight deadlines and penalties in the offing, it was important that both time and financial criteria were met. Appligenics offered a fixed price contract (which was delivered on schedule).
• RULES BASED
  Both IT and the business users could work together with the Business Rules definition in Appligenics. No knowledge of the underlying programming language or operating system was needed.
• SHORT LEARNING CURVE
  The simplicity of Appligenics meant that the learning curve was very short. The staff became proficient in designing systems very quickly, and were able to put to use their excellent business knowledge.
• PRODUCTIVITY
  The significantly reduced elapsed time and man-days needed to deliver the project meant that the systems were delivered on time and within budget.