SPACER


FLEET MANAGEMENT SOLUTION PROVIDERS

Challenge:

Starry Associates was contracted to upgrade the TaskForce™, PartsForce™, and PropertyForce™ fleet, parts, and property management software from a HP 3000 system to the PC/Network version for the county level government in the mid-west. The reason for this conversion was planned obsolescence; Hewlett-Packard was no longer going to support the HP 3000 hardware or software.

A few of the challenges were:

  • Data Conversion from old legacy software to new software
  • Eliminate erroneous data prior to data conversion to new system
  • No disruption to current business workflow processes
  • Project time line - had to be completed within five months of the scheduled start date
  • This was to be an integrated turnkey solution with new hardware, operating system, and security software

Solution:

Starry Associates met with the county project manager and fleet staff to jointly develop a strategy, and a plan for success. A strategy, project plan, and work breakdown structure was developed. The Starry Associates team as well as the client team worked together collaboratively in the planning and implementation of this effort.

The HP 9000 system was selected as the new successor, also selected was a UNIX operating system and Symantec security software. The Oracle database was to be housed on the new HP 9000 system and was going to be the primary repository for the fleet management software.

Starry Associates with the client planned the conversion of the legacy database and prepared the data for conversion. Starry Associate′s team reviewed the data and performed the initial data conversion at the Starry Associates facility. Starry Associates conducted several levels of testing throughout the process to ensure system operational integrity. After successful testing, Starry Associates installed the software application at the client facility. In addition, Starry Associates had trained the client staff a week prior of the ′′go-live′′ date so that the training would be effective for the employees come the following Monday morning when the system went ′′live′′.

Benefit:

Starry Associates was dedicated to making the project a success and their client successful. The weekend conversion, 48 hour conversion, was a success with the entire system being fully operational on Monday morning.

The county′s fleet was ranked 6th by the Utility Fleet Management of the top ten best managed fleets in North America in 2004.
SPACER