Volvo Bus, ltd. meets IS challenges: Integrates Leyland acquisition with productivity tool

One of the biggest challenges that any DP department can tackle must surely be the integration of two companies, each with its own information needs and disparate systems, into a single coherent business.The problems are compounded when the company is a market leader, when that market is undergoing a period of turbulence, and when the DP department consists of precisely two people.

But that was the challenge at Volvo Bus, Ltd. when it was formed as the UK marketing company following the acquisition of Leyland Bus, and it was faced by Information Systems Manager, Denny Wood and Gordon Scuffins, Systems Manager.

The Virtues of Self Help

With constraints on headcount and a heavy workload, the availability of an easy to use but powerful 4GL/CASE tool, the mrc-Productivity Series, played a central role in meeting this IS challenge. The mrc-Productivity Series, designed specifically for the IBM AS/400 by Chicago, Illinois-based michaels, ross & cole ltd., is marketed in the UK by Hoskyns Insight as a code generator, report writer and query tool.Ease of use was an important consideration since, as Mr. Wood explains, "Gordon Scuffins doesn't have a technical programming background and neither of us have RPG skills."

It was important to continue supporting the day-to-day requirements of users across the entire Volvo Bus business while the major job of reconciling the data and integrating all the systems went on in the background. "We wanted to get as much of the job done in-house as possible, without going to an external software house and without increasing our headcount," says Mr. Wood, who clearly believes in the virtues of self-help.

Development Time Cut in Half

Mr. Wood is convinced that the mrc-Productivity Series rose magnificently to the challenge. "The product has given us the speed and productivity, plus the ability to produce solutions ourselves. We have probably halved the time taken compared with the traditional approach of writing new programs from scratch in RPG," he says.

Developing solutions using the mrc-Productivity Series has also proved to be a highly efficient process in its use of machine processor and disk memory. Some initial skepticism about the load on the AS/400 proved to be unwarranted, since in practice, Volvo Bus has fully proved the machine efficiency of the mrc-Productivity Series and of the solutions developed using the product.

Increased Credibility

Some 200 new programs have been developed by Volvo Bus during the first 18 months' use of the mrc-Productivity Series, a fact which has created immense credibility for the two-man department among users. "Our users' perception is that 'an mrc' -- as they call it -- can solve everything," says Mr. Scuffins, who feels he has cracked the 'backlog' syndrome so often associated with small team DP outfits operating in a fast-changing environment.

With a market share of well over 50%, Volvo Bus is now the clear market leader in the UK bus and coach business. Deregulation has led to a period of turbulence which has put a premium on achieving a good flow of information to and from the marketplace -- a factor which has intensified the focus on IS activities.

Quality of Presentation

In contrast to cars and trucks, sales of buses and coaches tend to be direct to the customer, not through dealers, so that many of the reports produced by Scuffins and Wood are seen by customers -- fleet operators such as Shearings, Wallace Arnold and London Buses. There is, therefore, a premium on the quality of presentation and, here too, Volvo Bus believes that the mrc-Productivity Series has been a big help.

"It's obvious that the mrc-Productivity Series is designed very much with senior-level end users in mind, so that the quality of presentation you can achieve is truly excellent," Scuffins commented, "and this is another factor which distinguishes the product sharply from the utilities provided by IBM themselves for the AS/400."

In addition to servicing the business of supplying vehicles, the two DP specialists must also support a large and expanding aftermarket (parts and service) business.

The Biggest Challenge

But the biggest challenge was undoubtedly the provision of practical, interim solutions using data from the Leyland and Volvo parts of the business in the run up to 1993, when full integration from Volvo's Corporate DP unit is scheduled to take place.

Two completely different systems (with Leyland traditionally a McDonnell Douglas user) had to be taken into account, despite different sales methods, different order processing, different numbering conventions for parts -- and a host of other differences.

"This is really where the mrc-Productivity Series has really come into its own" said Scuffins, "since it is an excellent tool for producing integrated, analytical reports using the output from other systems. It has enabled us to maintain continuity of support to quite separate groups of users while simultaneously moving those two businesses together."

Summing up, Denny Wood says, "No doubt we could have tackled the challenges of the past two years without the mrc-Productivity Series because the job simply had to be done, but not within the same timeframe nor as cost effectively."