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Process Integration across Global Centers


The Client
A global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and computer products offers materials planning, programming and assembly services, inventory management, online supply chain tools and design services. Its worldwide customer base consists of over 150,000 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), contract manufacturers and commercial customers.

Business need
The company wanted to integrate processes for programming parts at all centers worldwide. It also wanted global reporting procedures to generate reports. This had to be implemented on standards created by JEDEC (Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council), an international body that sets integrated circuit standards.

Key Challenges
The company operated from various centers all over the world, and the need for consistency was paramount. Infosys also had to achieve the following:
  • The Infosys solution had to be efficiently integrated with the main host system, in order to avoid a lack of compatibility that could undo all other benefits of the system.
  • The systems had to be implemented in different locations in a phased manner and Infosys had to ensure a smooth rollout of the application to each center. This involved specific handholding for each office.
  • The system had to be robust and scalable to address and provide support to fast changing needs. Scalable consistency was also another factor to be considered as the solution had to perform uniformly in all offices and under varying conditions.
  • The centers were using different systems, creating compatibility problems. Infosys had to reduce redundancy by delivering a single system that would suit the needs of all the different programming centers.

Infosys' Role
The Infosys team of four onsite and twelve offshore personnel completed this project in 16 months by leveraging the Infosys Global Delivery Model to provide the client with a solution that suited their requirements.

The Infosys team did the requirement analysis and prepared use cases for testing purposes. This helped them get a good idea of the nature of deliverables, and enabled the creation of a business case study.

The implementation was done in phases and each stage consisted of requirements, design, implementation and testing. The Infosys team involved users at each stage of the project to ensure that the deliverables were on the right track. This also enabled the users to fully appreciate the capabilities of the system.

To handle the JEDEC system, the Infosys team adopted the RUP (Rational Unified Process). RUP provides guidelines, templates, and examples for each team member in the system development process and also supports the standard Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach was very useful for iterative development because it provides a uniform set of best practices.

The user interfaces were designed with Rational Rose and Wireframe, while J2EE was used for application implementation. The tasks before the team also included building a Web top tier front-end to eliminate applets, data modeling, report and interface creation and data migration. The final system also had the additional feature of Internet Protocol printing.

To speed up delivery time, processes were sub-divided into parallel modules and executed concurrently. The applications were then rolled out systematically to the multiple parts programming centers and there was a smooth transition from the old to the new. The team also identified areas of improvement for future implementation.

Benefits
The client benefited from the Infosys solution in many ways:
  • Infosys solution enabled the client to integrate IT processes at its globally distributed centers with disparate platforms into a single robust and scalable consistent process
  • Infosys delivered the application quickly without compromising on quality. The number of defects was in line with CMM 5 levels of 0.1. This was possible because of Infosys' strong user acceptance test standards.
  • The burden on the client's existing IT staff was reduced because of Infosys' development efforts.
  • The project also enabled a closer understanding of business processes, which led to continuous, incremental changes for the client, post-implementation.

Related Information

Webinar

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Get insights into sourcing and procurement for high-tech and manufacturing. Watch Webinar (registration required) an archived webinar that was hosted by AMR Research, Infosys and Microsoft.

 

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