Challenge

Shire’s legacy system had evolved over 15 years, as the company had grown significantly. As complexity increased, the business wanted to improve functionality and deliver new levels of management information.

To meet its growth targets and deliver innovative products to the marketplace, Shire decided to replace its legacy infrastructure with a new industry-standard architecture, database and development framework.

Shire’s business model revolves around the ability to adapt and react to changing business rules in different market areas. This requires a business process design that maintains traceability and audit ability whilst also enabling the business to serve its clients in the most effective ways possible. This provided a significant challenge for implementation of effective workflow, allows the necessary internal routing of cases while also delivering the flexibility required, with an agile project methodology incorporating ongoing feedback adopted as the optimal method for solution design and deployment.

The joint project team comprised personnel from all areas, including Datalytyx, Shire and other third parties, while Shire’s 16 Business Champions worked closely with technical development teams and provided key input to the functionality of the system.

Solution: ‘seamless implementation’ of new workflow engine

The project went through a number of design and build iterations, ensuring all functionality required converged in a fitfor-purpose solution that met all user requirements. Indeed, Jeff Barnwell, Training Consultant, says the willingness of Datalytyx and the development team to incorporate user feedback from training sessions “enhanced the quality of the system as well as the acceptance of users.” With workstreams executed simultaneously to ensure reporting, testing, training and change management were completed in tandem, the technologies deployed comprised K2, Web services, SQL Server 2005, VB.net, Infragistics control set, Citrix Presentation Server, Active Directory and external interfaces including credit scoring, notification and location services.

The most significant new functionality was the workflow engine, implemented using K2 running on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Implementation required migration from the former database structure to Microsoft SQL Server. The user application was deployed to both LAN and WAN users via Citrix Presentation Servers, in line with all other applications deployed within Shire. Elements were also deployed utilising .NET, with the client application leveraging Infragistics controls to enhance functionality available to the user.

Benefits

Following two test migrations and full business load/performance tests, the system was implemented successfully, with all departments operational in the first minutes of the business day. Despite the business-critical nature of the processes covered, Shire Leasing’s Training and Development Manager commented, “no service levels were adversely affected.”

Following implementation, the visibility of volume and status of cases was much improved, giving managers sight of several thousand ongoing cases and the ability to monitor what’s happening in a far more effective manner. Users can sort and filter data to find the information they require. Indeed, business volumes were replicated on the new system in the first days of operation, with users reporting that usability of the new system surpassed expectations. All the metrics available from the old system were exceeded, while visibility and audit ability enabled management to derive live information on activities within their departments. Ongoing system management and maintenance requirements also dramatically reduced, allowing more time to be spent enriching the application.

John Worton, Chairman of Shire Leasing, says that the fact Datalytyx understood the business so well “ensured that implementation of the new application was seamless.”