One of Ameritech's critical order-management applications, used to switch a customer's local or long-distance carriers, needed to be rewritten. In addition to not being Y2K-compliant, the system could not handle peak volumes and had high support costs due to its dial-up connections and bank of modems. Quality requirements were extremely high, as any errors or delays would cost SBC revenue, and the system is also regulated by the FCC. SBC decided to make the new version of the system available through a web browser to increase functionality and decrease support requirements. Access to the system had to be flexible, with functionality available to a variety of user groups, including SBC staff, other telecom companies, and a number of partner systems.

In order to ensure that the system would be able to be easily extended and upgraded in the future, NVISIA designed the system around a set of CORBA-based services that could be deployed in multiple configurations. (This was SOA in 1998 - before the term even existed.) Security and integration were also vital issues. Because of the practice of 'slamming' by unscrupulous companies, the system had to provide strong security and authentication and had to collect audit data. Client-side certifications and the Java cryptography package were used to secure the systems. To support data exchange with any other system, from mainframe and midrange to PC, ESP CARE used asynchronous messaging and IBM's MQSeries. Each state and region had different systems to integrate, each with different data & file formats.

Key products used were Borland CORBA AppServer for CORBA services, MQSeries for messaging, and Netscape's Webserver. A Java applet was used for the client GUI interface rather than plain HTML. This made the client code more complicated, but it was the only way to deliver all the required features while remaining browser accessible.

The system has been a great success for SBC. When Ameritech was purchased by SBC, the ESP CARE system was one of the only Ameritech applications that SBC decided to use for the entire SBC system. Since the first delivery, it has been extended to handle order changes for other SBC regions. System performance and volume has been outstanding, with performance improvements around 75% after roll-out, and to date the system has not become bogged down by increasing volume. In fact, volume is now [xx]% higher than when the system was originally delivered in 1999, but functionality has not decreased.

This was a classic business-critical project – the schedule was very short and the deadline was firm. The quality of the system had to be of very high from the start due to the financial and regulatory requirements, in addition to being a core system that would be in place for at least 5 years. (See Sun Case study for some quotes from SBC.)

Kraft was experiencing severe performance problems with Express 2, an internal self-service application used by employees to access and change their benefits plans. The application was launched in early in 2003, but poor performance due to production problems quickly made the application unusable. Additionally, due to the Express 2 running in a shared WebSphere application environment, other unrelated applications in this environment were also adversely affected.

NVISIA consultants reviewed the application and production environment and identified three high-priority issues that could be addressed quickly. Correcting these problems stabilized all applications in the shared environment and made them usable again.

NVISIA’s engagement began with a one-day project review. After the review, NVISIA submitted a report with recommendations. Two consultants then worked with Kraft for 4 weeks to improve the application's performance, robustness and extensibility. The goal of the 4 week project was to quickly stabilize the application while mentoring the Kraft team on J2EE and Struts best practices. This was accomplished through consulting and informal training and mentoring. Several prototype applications were developed to provide examples of design principles and to address issues that were affecting the client's applications.

Subsequently, NVISIA provided a number of technical seminars on other topics and created a microsite in order to meet Kraft’s priority of knowledge transfer.

Production problems were eliminated or greatly reduced in all applications running in the shared WebSphere environment. In addition to the improvements to the Express 2 application, the best practices guidance NVISIA provided was used by Kraft’s staff in designing the Benefits Enrollment application. The Benefits Enrollment system is now used by all of Kraft’s more than 30,0000 North American employees. In general, improvements to the Express 2 application were used as a concrete example of J2EE best practices which can now be incorporated by the Kraft team in all future projects. Because of the mentoring and informal training, the Kraft team has become more self-sufficient and is now able to design applications without outside assistance.

Hewitt Associates provides employee benefits management services to hundreds of companies worldwide. The vast number of users dependent on their services mandates that self-service applications be made available wherever possible, eliminating the need to call a customer service representative to retrieve customized benefits information. The SPM project created a secure self-service environment for users to retrieve information from Hewitt's Total Benefits Administration system. Hewitt examined a number of off-the-shelf solutions, but none were able to meet the project requirements. Hewitt chose NVISIA to develop the system and mentor Hewitt staff in J2EE principles.

NVISIA's system design focused on extending existing back-office data and services to the web. In addition to the technical solution, NVISIA mentored Hewitt's team throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring that they would be able to support and enhance the system after it was in production. The system provided users with instant access to PDF documents via the web, or if the transaction required a signature or review, sent a personalized, updated document in less than an hour.

The application used a variety of IBM tools: WebSphere (v3.02) running on the mainframe S/390, VisualAge (the predecessor of WebSphere studio), MQSeries, CICS and DB2. The VisualAge development environment, integrated with WebSphere, enabled new Java developers to be productive quickly.

NVISIA’s system solution reduced turnaround time for many of Hewitt’s information requests from 3-5 days to 1 hour. It also decreased the Benefits Center’s workload, reducing Hewitt's operational costs. Tim Hilgenberg, Chief Technology Strategist said, "It really comes down to faster, better, cheaper. Using WebSphere and VisualAge for Java, we've been able to leverage all our prior technology investments, including our System/390 enterprise servers, DB2 databases, CICS and MQSeries. The result is equal or better services for our customers via the web."

When a competitor announced it was releasing a new patient monitor, GEMS-IT decided they had to meet the challenge and create a new and improved patient monitor to replace their successful Solar series. The Solar monitors were developed over 8 years ago, and made use of some 20 year-old network infrastructure pieces. The monitors can display over 20 different types of information in real-time, and are used primarily in all nurses stations.

NVISIA assisted in all aspects of the project, including requirements, architecture, design, coding, testing and implementation. The project is still active and is the largest NVISIA project to date, with up to 15 consultants working on it.

The patient monitor is a very complex piece of equipment. The hardware was custom built by GEMS-IT and a custom version of the Debian Linux distribution runs on it. The NVISIA team worked closely with the GEMS-IT team and their domain experts to create a high-performance application that met all of the strict GE and FDA regulations.

While the product has not yet been released, early reviews have been very favorable. John Lalonde of GEMS said he would not have started the project without NVISIA.

This project is a perfect example of our business-critical criteria – quick time to market to ensure GE would not lose market share, with very high quality due to the critical application of this system that would need to be in use for at least 5 years.

GE Medical Systems Information Technology (GEMS-IT) produces bedside cardiac monitors that display ECGs and other vital statistics. The monitors use GE's proprietary in-hospital network (Unity) to allow the bedside monitors to be viewed from stations throughout the hospital. But access from outside of the hospital was minimally supported (the previous system, RSVP, used dedicated dial-up lines and a modem bank). In order to provide added features to its clients and further differentiate itself from competitors, GEMS-IT wanted a remote viewing solution that could be delivered through a web browser and standard internet connection, enabling doctors at home to view the bedside monitor of any patient.

NVISIA worked with the GEMS-IT team to identify requirements, define a system architecture and build the solution. For most of the GEMS-IT developers, this was their first Java project, and for some their first OO project, so mentoring was an important aspect of the project.

There were several business and technical requirements that added to the complexity of the solution. The client application had to be lightweight and require minimal support; the application could not put a heavy load on the hospital network, and it had to provide reasonable performance over a dial-up internet connection. Software quality had to be high, not only due to the critical nature of the application, but this device also had to pass strict FDA regulatory standards and GE's 6-Sigma quality requirements.

Because the cardiac waveforms cannot be displayed with standard HTML, the solution used Java's Web Start to install and maintain a Java application on the client desktop. Java Web Start enables full Java applications to be installed on a user's desktop while making administration and maintenance of the application easier by ensuring that the client applications are in-sync with the latest version on the server.

The system gave GEMS-IT a more efficient service to offer it's customers. The new application was both more fully-featured and easier to maintain than the previous RSVP application. Some artifacts from this project were also applied to the larger Emerald Host project describer earlier.

Not only is this system providing vital medical information throughout critical hospital environments, it was also used on a recent space shuttle flight, further attesting to its agility and critical performance benefits.

ACS State and Local Solutions (ACS-SLS) provides child support payment processing solutions to about a dozen states and handles about 50% of the child support payment volume nationwide. State child support contracts usually have short lead times (60-90 days from contract award to go-live) and require numerous customizations for each state. ACS was having trouble making all the required customizations in the short time period, and was also experiencing high maintenance costs. They needed a product platform that could be customized for each state, but also had a shared central core that would work the same way in each location. ACS decided to build a Java-based solution, and asked NVISIA to help with the project.

NVISIA was deeply involved in the entire project, from the feasibility study to installation and production support in three states (and even as far as interviewing potential ACS employees). The initial architecture was developed to be easily extendable, since each state has different business requirements. The system could not to be tied to any infrastructure product or OS platform, since each state determines the most cost-effective platform for their system. Another goal of ACS was to put most of the configuration information into the database instead of the code, so many state-specific customizations could be made without a new code release. These conditions made the application considerably more complex.

The KidStar development project met all the requirements, and has handled more volume than originally anticipated. After the initial development was completed and the product was delivered, the time and effort required to customize the product for the next state was greatly reduced, even as functionality was increased. NVISIA consultants spent considerable time mentoring ACS staff, many of whom were new to Java and are now supporting the application.

The financial and business benefits to ACS have been substantial, and will continue to grow as KidStar is installed in more states. It is currently running in 3 states, with 5 more states currently waiting. In all ways this was a business-critical application for ACS – the timeframe was very short, the quality had to be high (ACS is fined if the state finds any errors in the data sent to the state each night, or if the data is late), and the product needed be able to be expanded and modified for years to come.

Steve Walden of ACS said, "Of the tens of millions I have spent on outsourced development over the years, this is one of the only firms I feel has delivered value for me."