Managing conversion control centers
Martin Ridley
British Telecommunications Plc
The Angel Centre, 403 St. Johns Street
London ECIV 4PL, UK
Simon Mapes, David Wren
Brown & Root EPR Conversion Control Centre
54-60 South Street, Dorking
Surrey RH42HQ, UK
Introduction
British Telecommunications plc (BT) provides communication services in the U.K. (England, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland). Privatised in 1984, BT has embarked on many efficiency initiatives. The
company has significantly reduced staff over the past ten years and is continuing to implement new
systems and procedures aimed at maintaining a leading position in a highly competitive marketplace.
The External Planning and Recording project (EPR) is aimed at automating the design and recording of
external network records. BT has a total of 35 million lines in approximately 5,600 exchanges (wire
centers). Manual records are maintained in 55 regional drawing offices, and consist of approximately
200,000 geographic maps, 400,000 duct and cable diagrams, 2.5 million duct records, and numerous
other source documents. Drafting standards, while company-wide, have been adapted to suit regional
variations, especially in dense city centre areas such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow.
The EPR project & conversion iSSUES
BT investigated AM/FM systems during the 1980’s, and identified data conversion as a critical
component of the EPR project. Extensive discussions with other companies in various stages of system
implementation, and with conversion vendors showed that conversion could negatively impact the
project in two ways - the cost of conversion and the risk of failure.
- Conversion Cost
Forming a major part of the total project budget and schedule, conversion cost has a significant impact
on the cosffbenefit analysis, to the point that it may prevent justification of an AM/FM project. An earlier
BT project based heavily on a graphics-oriented AM/FM solution was analysed but the total conversion
costs (estimated to be ‘well over El 00 million’) rendered the project unfeasible.
- Conversion Cost Reduction
The design of the EPR system was influenced by the conversion cost issue, with a database-driven,
minimal graphics, orientation. BT’s national and local requirements in the U.K. service area were
addressed with a multi-tiered application. The dense and more active areas required full functionality
with full data conversion, while the rural low-activity areas required less functionality and a
correspondingly lower implementation cost.
BT also carefully considered and evaluated the use of off-shore conversion facilities for their potential
cost savings. BT were convinced that the use of such facilities would be both socially and politically
acceptable and were therefore included in the project execution strategy.
- Conversion Risk of Failure
Learning from the experiences of others, it was apparent that data conversion was often treated as a
project add-on that frequently failed primarily due to lack of adequate planning and project management
experience. Conversion specifications needed to be detailed and accurate, and skilled resources needed
to be in place to cope with the demands of the invariably tight conversion schedule. Project management
was identified as a critical requirement for the EPR project.
