Case Study

Some Case Studies of significant projects carried out

Case Study “Technological Database”

This Case Study provides a concise description of the problems faced with SkillUp in a company-wide project relating to the creation of a Technological Database as a tool for supporting, evaluating and controlling the impacts of developments in the company information system.

Scope

Definition and input of values on a Technological Database containing the main information relating to Programs / Files / Fields used in the various company procedures to have a tool for supporting, evaluating and controlling the impacts of IT developments. The detection of the entities present in the information system and above all of the links between the various objects provides very useful support for the evaluation, definition and implementation of company projects.

Context

Multinational industrial group that produces various brands of products with worldwide distribution.
The group follows all phases of the production cycle (design, construction, testing, purchasing of raw materials and semi-finished products, external processing, warehouses, commercial network management, marketing management, sales point product distribution, assistance network management, etc.) using multiple AS400 systems (also known as iSeries, System i, IBM i, IBM Power Systems)

Problems

The information of the various sectors and companies is managed on different systems and therefore for a more complete and correct management of the various software development projects, the need arose to have an overall vision of the “cross” information on the various systems of the Group. For example, in the case of development needs regarding identification information of administrative documents, it is necessary to be able to identify all the Files and Programs involved present on the various Systems.

Critical issues

The same information is defined or identified in different ways on the various Systems, making it complex to identify the correlations and propagation of information between the Files / Programs present on the various Systems.
Research and identification of the correct correlation between the Objects and their Sources in such a way as to guarantee the correct mapping of the information on the new Database.

Realization

The development of the project consists in the identification of all the objects present in the systems (programs, archives, logical views, data areas, etc.) through a scan of all the sources and with the identification of the “propagation” links of the information between archives/programs, programs/programs and programs/archives.

Furthermore, the mapping of the same information present on different systems with different nomenclature or type of data and the related relationships between objects must be managed.

Conclusions

The approach adopted for the Project, based on the development and use of automatic tools for identifying and storing the information to be analysed, made it possible to obtain a global vision, from an IT point of view, of the companies of the industrial group , which would otherwise have been difficult to obtain.
This allowed us to have the elements to predict the impacts and plan the activities in relation to the information involved in the various IT projects.

Find out more...

Case Study Coding Customers and Suppliers

This Case Study provides a concise description of the issues faced with SkillUP in a company-wide project relating to the complete review of Customer and Supplier coding across the entire company information system.

Purpose of the Project

Adaptation of Archives and Programs for changes in the coding of Customer and Supplier Codes, both in terms of format and values, following the adoption of new software packages and interfaces with external systems.

Context

Company that operates on markets worldwide, with needs to interface its systems with rapidly evolving Suppliers and Customers.
The need to interface new software and external systems has generated the need to adapt existing systems, created on the AS400 platform (also known as iSeries, System i, IBM i, IBM Power Systems), to allow interfacing with new applications adopted in company and with external systems that are increasingly used and important for the company’s business.

Problems

The rapid company growth on international markets has made it imperative and urgent to adapt company systems to be able to interface with new applications adopted in the company and with external systems increasingly used and integrated with the company business.
Among the needs that emerged, a relevant aspect was the need to adapt the Customer and Supplier Codings, both in terms of format and expected values and introducing alias concepts in the codings to make integration with other systems flexible.

Critical issues

The large amount of Files and Programs involved (several thousand), combined with the need to maintain 24/7 operations, forced us to adopt an approach of implementation in several activation batches distributed over a few months, so as not to create problems for business processes.
The project activity was carried out during the normal management and updating activities of the programs carried out by the other development teams: therefore it was necessary to frequently manage the updating (refresh) of the versions of the sources involved in the changes.
In several cases, uncertainties arose regarding the correct matching between Sources and related Objects: this aspect was managed with particular attention to prevent problems arising from the use of “misaligned” Sources.
Identification of the entities involved in the Project: since the information involved in the changes was present in many Files and “propagated” by the Programs into many other Programs and Files, the correct identification phase of all the Fields, Variables, Programs and Files involved was particular importance.

Realization

The development of the project consists in identifying all the intervention points in the programs / archives / logical views / data areas / etc. through a scan of all the sources that considers all the “propagation” links of the information.
For a Field to be modified on an Archive, the need for intervention can be spread to numerous other Fields / Archives / Programs in relation to the processing carried out, see fig. “Link Search Scheme”:

Very often the intervention points are numerous (in the order of thousands) and the use of automatic/semi-automatic tools enormously reduces times and risks of error.
In relation to the intervention points identified and the intervention rules decided in the design phase, ad hoc tools are created that automatically make corrections to the Sources (Data Structures, Physical Files, Logical Files, View Files, Print Files, Programs, .. .) for the vast majority of “standard” cases (attributable to predefined intervention rules) and that, in the case of non-“standard” situations, the evidence is indicated on specific Log Files and with “Tags” inserted in the sources of manual verification interventions and necessary corrections.
During the project, various Development / Test Environments are set up in preparation for the subsequent “unit tests” and “integration tests” (with the involvement of Users). Numerous “stress tests” are also prepared and carried out to force the processing of the modified Objects in order to verify the correct functioning of the modified versions of the objects involved.

Conclusions

The approach adopted for the Project, based on the development and use of automatic tools for the identification of intervention points and for their automatic and semi-automatic execution, allows an activity to be completed in just a few months which, with a unstructured, would require much more time and resources.
The main characteristics of the results obtained are:

Reduced times
Reduced costs
Significantly reduced probability of error: the use of automatic tools significantly reduces the probability of error due to the large amount of interventions that would certainly have suffered from the inevitable human “typing errors”
Traceability of changes: the use of automatic tools has the further advantage of being able to precisely track the changes made, both from the point of view of statistical detection and from the point of view of the evidence of recurring problematic situations which can suggest guidelines to be follow up by the Development Team.

Find out more...

Multi Currency and Multi Corporate Case Study

This Case Study provides a brief description of the issues addressed with SkillUp in a company-wide project relating to the complete review of the company Information System on the AS400 Platform (also known as iSeries, System i, IBM i, IBM Power Systems), for the adoption of transactions with multi-currency amounts following the opening of the company on international markets.

Scope

Adaptation of the company information system for the introduction of multicurrency management for all the amounts present and the management of the exchange criteria to be adopted following the opening of the company on international markets. The management of the different currencies used in the various processes also involved managing the storage of the exchange rates to be used with various reference dates, in relation to the dates of actual completion of the transactions.

Context

Italian national publishing group which, following its acquisition by a multinational group, found itself having to operate on multiple markets.

Problems

The presence of integer numeric fields without a reference currency did not allow for management similar to that envisaged by the other companies in the group, for which it was necessary to introduce multi-currency management.
This involved modifying the existing Amount Fields to include decimals, as well as introducing Currency and Reference Exchange and relative date fields.

Critical issues

The information involved in the new multicurrency management was in many cases used in calculations that required specific case-by-case assessments in the adjustment criteria to be adopted.
Furthermore, in this project, unlike others relating to interventions on the format and coding of values, there is a further complexity linked to the fact that the introduction of currency management implies that in many points of management of the amounts, in addition to the adjustment of the format of the fields, it is necessary to obtain the exchange rate to be applied and store the information of the exchange rate valid at the time of the transaction.
Verification of the correct match between Sources and Objects running in the Production environment: this aspect was managed with particular attention to prevent problems resulting from the use of “misaligned” Sources.

Realization

Very often the intervention points are numerous (in the order of thousands) and the use of automatic/semi-automatic tools enormously reduces times and risks of error.
In relation to the intervention points identified and the intervention rules decided in the design phase, ad hoc tools are created that automatically make corrections to the Sources (Data Structures, Physical Files, Logical Files, View Files, Print Files, Programs, …) for the vast majority of “standard” cases (attributable to predefined rules of intervention) and that, in the case of “non-standard” situations, the evidence of the necessary manual checks and corrections is indicated on specific Log Files and with “Tags” inserted in the sources.
In this project, in relation to the critical issues set out above, this aspect (“non-standard” situations) had a particular relevance and impact both in the phase of defining the rules and in the management of exceptions encountered in development.
During the project, various Development / Test Environments are set up in preparation for the subsequent “unit tests” and “integration tests” (with the involvement of Users).
Numerous “stress tests” are also prepared and carried out to force the processing of the modified Objects in order to verify the correct functioning of the modified versions of the objects involved.

Conclusion

The approach adopted for the Project, based on the development and use of automatic tools, allowed the completion of the adaptation of the Information System to the presence of multiple currencies in a short time and with high reliability.
The reliability of the result obtained is certainly greater than what would have been obtained with traditional interventions, without automatic tools, involving a greater number of resources and for a longer time.
Furthermore, it was possible to dedicate more time of the project resources to manage the additional interventions hoc necessary in the “critical” points highlighted by the automatic analysis tools as all the automatable aspects did not require “human” intervention.

Find out more...