Here are some of the more interesting projects CS400 has managed.

CS1

Quality outcomes on a shoestring budget

Vision Radio have over 600 transmitters throughout Australia and transmit from their broadcast studios in Brisbane. With a plan to build new sound recording studios and install latest technology digital recording equipment I took on the role of project manager. It required engaging with a sound engineer to understand the complexities of building quality sound proof studios and then keeping a close eye on the builder and tradesmen to ensure everything was done correctly.

To make sure no external sounds can sneak into the studio the walls must be triple sheeted with sound-check batts between. The doors are heavy solid wood and very well sealed to the door jamb and the floor. Windows must be double glazed using two different thicknesses of glass (the frequencies of sound that will penetrate glass is linked to the thickness) with the panes of glass set at an angle to each other.

To avoid echoes inside the sound studio walls must not be parallel so the studio had five sides

CS2

How to survive when your global IT department pulls the plug on your mission critical system

A big resources group had their SAP Learning Management System “de-scoped” from the global SAP project, but for some reason management refused to extend the decommission date for the existing LMS, which meant they would be without a LMS. In the mining world keeping track of employees’ and sub-contractors’ training courses, inductions and operating tickets is crucial to being able to fulfil the regulations governing the license to operate.

Thus the division found themselves with just over twelve months in which to find and implement an alternative LMS. I was one of three project managers managing this process out of Brisbane with implementations in Western Australia, South Africa and Mozambique. Being physically remote from the implementation sites, and with the complication of differing time zones – not to mention cultural backgrounds – made for a challenging project. But it was successfully delivered on time and with good levels of user acceptance.

My specific role in the project was overseeing the acceptance testing and managing the defects list (release control) as well the organisational change management and training of the super users and support desk personnel.

CS3

EMM – incredibly great expectations

Or how to find a million meters (water and electricity meters not 100 cm meters)

Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality was formed by amalgamating 9 smaller municipalities into a 2.4 million resident mega-metro. The data inherited from the 9 was a mess and they made the unprecedented decision to do a physical audit of every water and electricity meters on the 525,000 properties in the metro. I was one of a team of 5 engineers managing the overall project and I was responsible for providing all IT systems. Ninety 3-man teams collected data on meter types, readings, status, GPS location (to sub-1m accuracy). The system automatically issued works orders for the repairs of any meters reported as faulty. Digital cameras were used to record cases of illegal connections or tampering, and this was passed to the legal department for further action. A random 5% sample of all meters were inspected to validate the accuracy of data being uploaded to the master database.

The data collected over the 20-month duration of the audit project was reconciled to the data held by the metro and discrepancies passed back to the finance department for correction and if necessary, recovery of money owed. If the metro had acted immediately on all the discrepancies reported the $10 million cost of the project would have been recouped in 9 months.

CS4

Keeping the Focas on the strategic goal

In the aftermath of 911 the aviation industry was one of the hardest hit. Quite understandably many people that once would have thought nothing of climbing on board an aircraft to visit friends or family now had second thoughts. The slowdown in the aviation sector spread throughout the world.

On behalf of ExecuJet, a company based in South Africa but with offices in Europe, Australia and the Middle East, CS400 project managed the development of a custom suite of software to underpin strategic business goals. ExecuJet specialise in executive aviation, selling LearJet and Bombardier business jets. Their business model is providing for a total package solution; selling the aircraft with a bundled contract to maintain and operate the highly expensive asset and to charter out the aircraft when it was not in use by the owners.

Finding a ready-made IT system to support this business strategic proved impossible. The top aviation operations software from the USA was piloted, but found to be inadequate. So ExecuJet took the decision to develop their own system to cater for all their needs. CS400 project managed finding a suitable developer, and then set about delivering the first module to manage the aircraft sales process. As each module was delivered and proved itself the ExecuJet senior management started to see the benefits to their business and approved the next phase of development. The Flight Operations Manager in particular really grasped just what could be achieved and became excited as modules were implemented and more and more value derived from being able to manage all aspects within one system.

The FOCAS system (Flight Operations Chartering & Aviation Services) covered scheduling of aircraft and crews, alerting of potential violations of crew duty rules and sending automated notifications to crew members when they had been scheduled for duty and reminders of upcoming flights. It also provided for all aspects of aviation services, obtaining overflight clearances and landing permissions, and arrangements for refuelling en-route. It calculated expected costs of all these services with updates to the costing database when supplier invoices were processed. It handled regulatory flight tracking, raising alerts if an aircraft had not checked in at the next destination when expected. It kept track of passengers with crucial details like passport and visa information as well as preferences such as meals and drinks. It generated detailed invoices to the charter clients and interfaced to the accounting system to record both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable transactions.

The pièce de résistance which really caught the attention of the directors was when the system starting giving them a daily dashboard reporting the number of aircraft in productive use and the expected revenue and profits.

CS400 managed the whole project from start to completion. It was done Agile, before the term “Agile” was even coined. If we had of tried to present a “waterfall” picture of the whole system it would never have been approved; most directors would have responded “tell ‘em they’re dreaming”. But all credit to the line managers who did catch the vision and invest their time and efforts into making the system the success that it is. It was a pleasure working with such visionaries who could see the possibilities of how a custom built system would revolutionise their business.

ExecuJet weathered the storm in the aviation industry far better than their competitors, many of whom posted losses during the downturn.

CS5

How a big corporate free-for-all punch-up was narrowly averted

CS400 was contracted to provide second line support for the wide area network for the South African National Parks Board (SANP). They were busy implementing a front-of-house system in all their many bush camps and remote locations around the country. The very nature of Being-in-Nature carries a few inherent problems. National Parks – especially in Africa – tend to be wild places far from cities and built up areas. So telecommunications services were somewhat lacking. The solution that the telecoms provider Telkom was eagerly pushing was satellite communications.

But here’s the Problem. The front desk system is used to check in guests, who tend to be a little impatient after a long hot dusty trip to the game reserve and just want to get to their rooms as soon as possible. But the client server software system that had been developed proved intolerably slow at accessing the database via the satellite link. SANP was blaming the software developers for such pathetic performance of their software, the developers were howling that the IT departments networks were too slow. The IT guys blamed Telkom who just kept reiterating that the bandwidth available on the satellite link was the same as on land line channels.

Knowing that there was not going to be any solution until some real technical data was independently verified, I convinced the IT Manager to allow me to do some independent investigations. Turns out that the issue at the core of the whole fiasco was the fact that while satellite communications may achieve the same bandwidth as landlines they have a very high latency. It took many sessions with the Telkom account manager to get him to understand the difference between bandwidth and latency. Only then could we acknowledge there was a problem that needed to be solved together. I proposed Citrix (at the time revolutionary new technology) and then we all lived happily ever after (sort of).

CS6

Strangest advice ever: Stop doing backups !

A supermarket chain had lost their IT manager and not really been trying very hard to recruit a replacement. Another business consultant doing work for the company recommended that I be engaged to check on the poor performance of the IBM mid-range system. After an initial interview with the CFO – who assured me that he was keeping an eye on the junior IT staff and that all was going great and backups were being done successfully every night – I got into taking a closer look at daily operations. Backups were done in the middle of the night to a disk file which then was saved to tape the following day. Problem was the save to disk was pushing the disk utilization to 99%. Then I checked what was being backed up and it was only some of the data directories. The operators explained that if they tried to back up everything they would hit the 100% utilisation at which time the whole system would shut down (and corrupt who-knows-what in the process). They had progressively removed directories from the backups in order to avoid the 100% disk space melt-down.

So it was straight back to the CFO with my first piece of marvellous advice: “For heaven’s sake, stop doing backups immediately”. As one might imagine the advice was not well received and it took quite a dramatic confrontation to convince him of the wisdom of my extraordinary advice. The next weekend I had the IT staff working through the night to do a full system backup to tape. Within three weeks we had a major system upgrade installed and new operating procedures implemented. And another six weeks later I could hand over a sweetly running IT department to the newly appointed IT manager.

CS7

Moving a radar station

Background

During the guerrilla war waged by Robert Mugabe against Rhodesia one of the key infiltration routes for guerrillas attempting to enter the country was across Lake Kariba, typically in rubber dinghies at night. To counter this threat the army set up a chain of radar stations, often based on islands. These were manned 24×7 by small crews, typically 4 or 5, who had to be concerned with their own safety from attack as well as maintaining constant radar watch. This was one of very few operations in the war that could boast an almost perfect record of success.

The Problem

One of the stations had been installed on a 10m high mast on top of 100m high Weather Island. This was good for viewing the hills in the distance, but not very effective for locating small rubber dinghies at water level 110m below. This station had to be moved to Forty Mile Island 5km away and only 25m above the water.

None of my seniors wanted to touch this project, but as Signals Officer for the Kariba operations I declared “I’ve got this” and leapt in, boots and all. Army boots of course.

Constraints

There was no spare equipment available to set up an additional radar station, get this operational and then take down the old station. And it was considered imperative that effective monitoring was maintained every night. That meant the move had to be completed in one day within daylight hours. Only two weeks were allocated to plan everything and secure the required resources. While all the personnel involved were still required to fulfill all their usual operational duties.

Resources available

One ferry (officially named MV Ubique, but generally known to all as “The Good Ship Lollipop”). Capable of carrying 2 trucks.

Two Mercedes Unimog 4×4 2.5-ton trucks

Assorted manpower including 2 electronics technicians with knowledge of the radar systems.

Plan

Load the ferry in the afternoon then travel overnight arriving at dawn.

Drop off the technicians to begin dismantling the radar equipment, and some troopies to carry all the equipment (tents, freezer, cooking, generator, banks of heavy duty 12V batteries) down the 100m high island.

Offload the two Unimogs on Forty Mile Island. Drive these to the top of the island and leave a team to dig foundations and throw a concrete base for the mast.

Ferry return to Weather Island to load up equipment, then transport this to Forty Mile Island.

Result

100% success, and heaps of fun as well (who else has driven a Unimog onto a virgin island where no vehicle has ever been before? )