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Case Studies --> Other Projects of Interest

Data Warehousing Initiative for publicly traded, Educational Institute.

Leading the creation of a corporate data warehousing infrastructure at $600MM educational institute. Initial “low hanging” fruit were identified and a business case created for a data mart. This is envisaged as the first in a series of data warehousing projects at the client location.  The overall architecture developed, the methodology employed and Reporting and ETL tools selected will become standards for use in subsequent data warehousing projects across organization.

Version 1 of Application to test Consumer Devices.

Our client is a leader in programmable video test generator technology and provides test instruments and solutions to customers such as Sony, Hitachi, etc.  Radicle assisted the client in development of V1.0 of a software application that provides a flexible framework to automate testing of consumer devices for compliance with HDMI specifications - a rapidly emerging standard in the industry. The application allows users to select device types and specific compliance specifications - CEC, etc. - for which tests are to be performed.  Compliance specific tests, expected results and commands, parameters and services to perform tests are all stored as data in XML format. This allows end clients to create their own test scenarios for different display devices using the commands and services provided by the the test instrument.  A simple, intuitive interface allows users to walk through different sections and compliance tests, execute and view steps associated with each test and then print test results, including details of the step where the device under test may have failed.  A "data driven" approach was employed to ensure that new device types and/or compliance specifications can be supported without requiring re-coding.  Technologies and tools used were Java, Swing, Sockets, XML, Jude XMLSpy.

PM support for “Fast Track” restructuring of Student Finance department of $600MM educational institute

The Financial Aid department at our client is responsible for disbursing loans for more than 30,000 students/year. As part of a corporate initiative to contain costs, the client has decided to outsource most of the processes related to servicing student loans to a Business Process Outsourcing vendor.

Radicle’s assistance was sought in the restructuring of the department and transitioning it from its “current state” to the “future” outsourced state where only select functions such as disbursement, QA, escalation desk call center etc. were retained by client staff. Key performance objectives of this project were to:

• Transition approximately 50 distinct processes within an aggressive time period of less than 2 months without having a negative impact on service to students.
• Ensure performance by the vendor both in terms of volume of loans processed and their accuracy.
• Modify existing infrastructure to support the new outsourced model. 

A Radicle Principal, operating as the Restructuring Project Manager, worked closely with client managers and introduced an organized project management approach with detailed project/production plans and clearly defined roles/responsibilities. In addition, “soft” issues related to employee morale and cooperation between vendor and client teams were addressed separately. Finally, a “dashboard” was created to enable the department head to keep track of production during this critical period and re-assign resources as necessary.