Challenges

The biggest challenge was using on-premises infrastructure, which brought with it the constant need to support the hardware in the face of increasing data volumes. The bank required new approaches to working with data that the current infrastructure could not support. In light of this, it turned to IBA Group in search of a solution to the several competing challenges it faced.

Business challenge

Migrate the existing procurement management system servicing the manufacturing processes of the automotive manufacturer to the Java platform with subsequent support and development of new system.

Solution

With the support of the customer, IBA Group experts migrated the procurement management system of the automobile group of companies from the SmallTalk platform to the Java platform. At the same time, the project documentation was restored using the code to describe functional behavior of the system. In the period from 2003 to 2005, the IBA Group team reached 100 people.

Since 2005, the IBA Group team continued to support and to develop the new system. During this period, at the request of the customer, modifications were introduced to the system that were required by constantly changing business environment: the opening of new plants, the creation of production sites in new regions, changes in the economy and legislative framework, the development of cooperative relations with other manufacturers of automotive equipment, changes in the customer’s internal processes. Technical changes related to the evolution of the Java platform have also been implemented.

Result

Between 2003 and 2005, the IBA Group team migrated the existing system to the Java platform with a complete replacement of the system in commercial operation with a new system.

Since 2005, the IBA Group team has implemented more than 900 requests for system changes due to new business requirements.

The system is implemented in all customer factories around the world. The total number of system users is about 50,000 procurement specialists.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The customer requirement was to minimize the cost of migration to SAP S/4HANA for their distributed systems. Technical assessment is usually conducted before the migration for this purpose. It allows the customer to evaluate the amount of work for migration services, make up a list of improvements and draw up a project budget.

SOLUTIONS HIGHLIGHTS

Initially, the company’s IT-department planned to conduct a technical assessment on their own. After special programs and utilities have been launched, SAP administrators received a list of 17 000 errors. Due to the lack of competencies, the customer decided to hire a contractor. Among the main requirements was the knowledge of the German language and the ability to work on site in Germany.

The migration plan includes the conversion of nine distributed SAP systems into S/4HANA between 2020 and 2025. 40 person-days were allocated for the technical assessment. Using two out of nine customer’s systems as an example, experts from IBA Group estimated the upcoming migration and made recommendations for all project participants.

RESULTS

The customer has received documentation containing a range of work on the migration, a list of improvements and recommendations, budget forecast and project timelines.

Business challenge

Lifecell uses IBM Maximo as a centralized management system for network operation and development. IBM Maximo integrates and automates more than 30 business processes across radio network, transport network, network control, and network planning departments and serves more than 1,000 active users, with 120-160 users working simultaneously.

Based on the legacy Maximo 5.2 technology, the customer’s management system was unable to meet the new scalability, performance, and security needs. The main challenges included the following.

• The management system had roughly 100 custom applications and complicated business logic. No migration procedure was in place
• The legacy applications were poorly or not documented and the developers who initially performed the design and implementation were not available
• Certain parts of the business logic were implemented in the form of PL/SQL procedures
• The IBM Maximo management system is integrated with a number of external systems, including SAP (material transactions), Oracle IDM (user information and organizational structure), NetAct Planner (site and radio link information), HP Temip (Trouble Ticket Management and alarm information), and Nokia, and Ericsson OSS systems (automated site halting)
• According to the estimates, the migration process could take up to one year. Within this period, it was necessary to perform development and enhancement for the legacy applications and all applications were to stay up and running during the whole migration process.

SOLUTIONS HIGHLIGHTS

The Maximo migration started with a preparation stage that included a visit to the customer’s premises by IBA Group experts. Following the analysis of the requirements and estimation of the scope of work, IBA Group participated in a tender organized by the customer and won it.

The migration project was launched in March, 2015. The project team included IBM Certified Maximo specialists, Oracle DBA, business analysts, a QA specialist, and a technical writer.

The project was implemented in four stages and for every stage a subset of applications was selected, forming an application group. Each application group was migrated, switching the production from Maximo 5 to Maximo 7 for that group within one night. Within the migration process, data synchronization procedures were established to ensure data consistency between Maximo 5 and Maximo 7.

For every migrated application, the following scope of work was done:

• Reverse engineering to prepare the technical task document that describes the application’s design, database objects, business logic, UI, and all data dependencies
• Data migration and synchronization plan to document the data sources to be migrated and the data sources to be synchronized between Maximo 5 and Maximo 7, including all required data and structure transformation
• Application UI transformation from custom Maximo 5 jsp pages to Maximo 7 application XML markup, ensuring identical source UI layout and structure
• Business logic, including workflows and java customizations for Maximo 7
• Transformation of the existing PL/SQL procedures into Maximo cron tasks
• Data migration and transformation according to the data migration plan
• Report transformation to match the data structure modifications.

The following IBA-developed automation tools became a part of the Maximo development environment.

• Automated Maximo configuration management designed to create and update Maximo objects, including MBO, domains, and person groups based on the repository data
• Automated Maximo 5 application analysis to identify and document all data sources used by an application
• Automated transformation of Maximo 5 visual application forms into Maximo 7 application’s XML, preserving source layout.

With the enhanced development environment, the project team managed to deliver the second, third, and fourth application blocks with an 80 percent reduction in efforts as compared to the first application block.

Results

The project was completed successfully in December, 2016 with positive feedback from the customer. The upgraded management system is stable and meets strict security requirements. With the newly available platform features, especially REST API and Web Services, the system is deeper integrated into the corporate information system, meeting the growing requirements of business units.

Konstantin Zhylin, Head of Department for Telecommunication Systems Operation at Lifecell

“We would like to express our gratitude to IBA Group for the IBM MAXIMO Upgrade they implemented at Lifecell. Our teams worked hard for almost two years and successfully completed the project. It is safe to say that it was an exceptionally challenging project that is second to none with regard to the approaches and methodologies applied. I’d like to thank every participant of the project for the work performed. In addition, I would like to underscore an operational excellence of the team, their flexibility in problem solving, sociability, and customer–centric approach. As a result, it became possible to build up the processes of project management and successfully complete the migration of 80 applications to the new version of Maximo, conduct the training of users, and launch the new system. We are happy to recommend IBA Group as a reliable and proficient partner who is able to solve the most sophisticated problems to the best advantage.”