ALLTEL’s Successful AM/FM Program
Pilot Program
The approved pilot program started in June 1987. The overall goal was to gather additional data
to reaffirm many of the assumptions formulated to date. We wanted to minimize our financial
exposure so we leased hardware, deployed standard operating software and converted one
exchange (wire center) with 5,900 customer lines. We anticipated being able to extrapolate these
costs and savings to finalize our organizations outside plant engineering mechanization business
plan.
While the pilot program at ALLTEL was considered successful, the base was certainly not large
enough to make a multi million dollar decision. Our technical advisory group recommended that
the pilot be extended. We accepted the recommendation and incorporated it into our update to
senior management. After reviewing our proposal to extend the pilot to build a larger knowledge
base for our final recommendation, Senior Management granted approval for Phase II. In
January 1989 phase II of the ALLTEL pilot program commenced. Conversion of outside plant
records associated with 39,000 additional customer lines, adding two more workstations and
training six additional users were the major components of phase II. We were also charged with
developing a method to predict potential labor savings that could be achieved. The second phase
of the pilot program completed about March 1990.
Final recommendation to management
A formal written management recommendation with supporting proforma information was
delivered to senior management early in June 1990. After their review, (later that month) we
made a formal presentation to several officers of ALLTEL.
Leading our recommendation was implementation through a modular controlled approach. We
recognized this was a large undertaking demanding the efforts of many individuals. We stated
that our findings demonstrated that this project had the potential to position the Engineering
departments to minimize the number of employees required (in the future) to support our
customers and our organization. We recommended a goal of completing conversion by the end
of 1999. We also recommended centralizing the support group and using a single rulebase
throughout ALLTEL.
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