| GISdevelopment.net ---> GITA 1998 ---> User Perspective |
ALLTEL’s Successful AM/FM Program
Donald Hudak
Staff Manager - Network Services
ALLTEL Communications, Inc.
1 Allied Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas, 72203, USA
Phone 501-905-8953
FAX 501-905-6133
Donald Hudak
Staff Manager - Network Services
ALLTEL Communications, Inc.
1 Allied Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas, 72203, USA
Phone 501-905-8953
FAX 501-905-6133
Abstract
ALLTEL’s communications businesses provides local telephone, long distance, and wireless services to more than 2.7 million customers in 14 states (November 1997). Our local telephone outside plant engineering and assignment groups consist of about 500 people in 94 locations. Our AM/FM program was approved in 1989 and currently supports our wireline (local telephone) outside plant records. The landbase is completely digitized, outside plant records associated with 1 million customer lines (at year end 1996) are also complete. The plant records conversion is anticipated to be completed by year end 1998. ALLTEL started with a VAX based system and 56k networking. We moved to workstations with Clipper technology and are currently deploying Windows NT. On a corporate level we have a dedicated Administrative Manager and a Technical Manager. Our Administrative Manager negotiates support and procurement contracts, system practices, training documents and overall coordination. Our Technical Manager maintains the rulebase and database structure, validation software, and connectivity to legacy systems. At year end 1997 we had four database servers. Each of the server locations has a staff of three or four people that support 103 engineering/records software licenses at 27 engineering sites. We also have 147 copies of records viewing software at 15 locations.
Introduction
ALLTEL was formed in 1983 with the merger of the Allied Telephone Company and Mid-Continent Telephone Corporation. In 1983 the new company’s customer (wireline) lines totaled 847,000 operating in 19 states. ALLTEL has expanded beyond an operating telephone company, at year end 1997 we will have about 1.8 million wireline and .9 million wireless customers. We currently operate wireline exchanges in 14 states. Our wireline assignments and outside plant groups currently consist of about 500 people in 94 locations. This paper will deal primarily with our wireline efforts.
How we started
In 1985 our Vice President of Corporate Network Services established an adhoc in-house committee to review (the then current) automated drafting offerings. During 1985 this group made visits to other telephone companies, hardware and software equipment suppliers, AM/FM conferences, and conversion vendors. They made numerous phone calls and reviewed industry journals. They recommended that a dedicated team be established to perform an in-depth study. Acting on that recommendation, a formal focus group was established in 1986. The adhoc committee had successfully demonstrated to senior management that paper based engineering records should be eliminated. This goal was agreed to by ALLTEL’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and other key Senior Management. The focus group worked for about one year gathering more data, interviewing additional users, meeting with hardware and software vendors and selecting a conversion partner. At the conclusion of their efforts a presentation and business plan recommending a pilot program was given to management.
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.
Deployment Strategy
In 1991 deployment of our CAD/E program began. At that time, ALLTEL was comprised of five operating “regions” with each region having their own business plans and resultant CAD/E deployment schedules.
Deployment components are generally categorized as: Conversion, Hardware and Software, Networking, Maintenance and Training.
Conversion is handled by contract conversion vendors. With the conversion process local (company employees) assistance is mandatory. Records must be copied and mailed to vendors. Questions arise regarding notes, symbols and legibility problems. Intervention on the part of local knowledgeable people is essential. When a vendor is digitizing records it is common to have conflicting records, these also must be resolved by local forces. Finally, when the totally digitized records are returned it is the local forces who must do visual and database verification. At ALLTEL we improved upon database validation by having a consultant develop software that would check the database for errors and insure integrity.
Hardware for the CAD/E system has been provided by multiple vendors. Some manufacturers have niche markets or superior products and they cannot be a sole source. At ALLTEL we minimized our vendor relationships to maintain centralized hardware control and to take advantage of volume sales agreements when possible.
Software for the CAD/E system is divided into core or support products. Our core software is from one vendor to assure we have one rulebase for all users. Again the centralized control and volume agreements are administered at one point of contact. Support software that is used for validation, networking or interfaces have been developed by others. We believe the validation software allows a check and balance of the core software. Networking and interfaces are often better handled by specialists.
Networking has changed dramatically since the start of our project. Initially the workstations needed to be close to the processor or connected over dial up modems. This networking is both inefficient, costly, and slow. Responses from commands were not tolerable to most users. We have since migrated to 56K dedicated circuits, used our internal packet network, and will soon move to our ATM network.
Where we are now
Outside plant engineering records conversion is about complete. The landbase records are 100’% digitized, containing about 55,000 square miles. The plant records associated with one million customers was completed at year end 1996. We expect to have 90°/0 of our current customer base of 1.8 million customer lines completed at year end 1997.
Interfaces to our Accounting groups Continuing Property Records system (CPR’S) is complete. When a user final posts a work order the database records are automatically transferred to the continuing property records system for updating.
Our current user base consists of Drafters, OSP Engineers, Planners, Engineering Managers, and the Assignment group.
Major benefits realized
ALLTEL now has clearly legible, to scale outside plant records. We have eliminated the posting and redraw process associated with paper records. We now do long range planning, short range planning and daily activities from the same base records. Accounting has eliminated key punching and input of data to our continuing property records. Engineers have an automatic input to our CPR’s. Outside plant engineers can now perform mechanized loop make ups. We have placed up to date maps and records on our assigners’ desks. They are now more efficient since they are working with up to date information that can be accessed by entering a pole number or street address. We have eliminated a significant numbers of paper records from this work group.
Our project was partially justified by stating that we would minimize the staff growth associated with customer growth. We currently have fewer people in the outside plant engineering group than we had in 1989, and have increased our customer base about 800 thousand customers to about 1.8 million.
Short range plans
We expect to complete conversion of all wireline outside plant records by the year end 1998. We are currently exploring the options and opportunities associated with wireline convergence with wireless information.
Synchronization of timing associated with data between property records, assignment and miscellaneous engineering records will be identified and resolved.
Our present continuing property records and the CAD/E system store redundant records information. Efforts will be directed to the elimination of redundant information after all conversion work is completed.
We will deploy an ALLTEL Network Services group Intranet Web Page. Our Web Site will be accessible to internal users. It will house engineering and technical related Practices and Procedures. Our CAD/E Training guide and Reference documents will be a part of the web page as well as internal and external statistics.
Future
The future will hold many opportunities for the expansion of records availability to all work groups. Marketing has not used our records base or maps, but as we move forward demographic information can be overlaid. By using satellite imagery improvements to the land base, accuracy will occur. The impact of wireless technology will allow another convergence of information.
ALLTEL operates a Network Management Center that provides network surveillance and fault management. They can interact with switching systems and digital loop carrier system to perform software updates and repair outages. The CAD/E graphic records and database will be made available to assist this work group in the resolution of customer impacting events.
Summary
ALLTEL’s overall expenditures to mechanize the outside plant engineering records are near estimates developed in late 1989 and 1990. This has occurred despite so many changes to our company and AM/FM/GIS industry and mapping technology. We believe the decision to mechanize our records has allowed us to take advantage of lower staffing levels notwithstanding dramatic increases in our customer base.
The telephone industry is changing rapidly and the traditional barriers between local service, long distance service, and wireless services are being removed. At ALLTEL we refer to this as convergence. We have embraced this process and are moving forward with unified support staffs and records. Convergence will have an impact on the wireline rulebase and fiture CAD/E plans.
Our previous efforts have well prepared us for the advent of the Intemet, improved GIS modeling, and public access to satellite systems while making us more efficient. We may find that using this improved converging technology may impact some of our previous efforts and require changes in the way we collect and access information. However, the base of information collected and maintained over the last decade is what allows us to take advantage of the new technology for even greater efficiencies across the entire company.
ALLTEL’s communications businesses provides local telephone, long distance, and wireless services to more than 2.7 million customers in 14 states (November 1997). Our local telephone outside plant engineering and assignment groups consist of about 500 people in 94 locations. Our AM/FM program was approved in 1989 and currently supports our wireline (local telephone) outside plant records. The landbase is completely digitized, outside plant records associated with 1 million customer lines (at year end 1996) are also complete. The plant records conversion is anticipated to be completed by year end 1998. ALLTEL started with a VAX based system and 56k networking. We moved to workstations with Clipper technology and are currently deploying Windows NT. On a corporate level we have a dedicated Administrative Manager and a Technical Manager. Our Administrative Manager negotiates support and procurement contracts, system practices, training documents and overall coordination. Our Technical Manager maintains the rulebase and database structure, validation software, and connectivity to legacy systems. At year end 1997 we had four database servers. Each of the server locations has a staff of three or four people that support 103 engineering/records software licenses at 27 engineering sites. We also have 147 copies of records viewing software at 15 locations.
Introduction
ALLTEL was formed in 1983 with the merger of the Allied Telephone Company and Mid-Continent Telephone Corporation. In 1983 the new company’s customer (wireline) lines totaled 847,000 operating in 19 states. ALLTEL has expanded beyond an operating telephone company, at year end 1997 we will have about 1.8 million wireline and .9 million wireless customers. We currently operate wireline exchanges in 14 states. Our wireline assignments and outside plant groups currently consist of about 500 people in 94 locations. This paper will deal primarily with our wireline efforts.
How we started
In 1985 our Vice President of Corporate Network Services established an adhoc in-house committee to review (the then current) automated drafting offerings. During 1985 this group made visits to other telephone companies, hardware and software equipment suppliers, AM/FM conferences, and conversion vendors. They made numerous phone calls and reviewed industry journals. They recommended that a dedicated team be established to perform an in-depth study. Acting on that recommendation, a formal focus group was established in 1986. The adhoc committee had successfully demonstrated to senior management that paper based engineering records should be eliminated. This goal was agreed to by ALLTEL’s Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and other key Senior Management. The focus group worked for about one year gathering more data, interviewing additional users, meeting with hardware and software vendors and selecting a conversion partner. At the conclusion of their efforts a presentation and business plan recommending a pilot program was given to management.
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.
Deployment Strategy
In 1991 deployment of our CAD/E program began. At that time, ALLTEL was comprised of five operating “regions” with each region having their own business plans and resultant CAD/E deployment schedules.
Deployment components are generally categorized as: Conversion, Hardware and Software, Networking, Maintenance and Training.
Conversion is handled by contract conversion vendors. With the conversion process local (company employees) assistance is mandatory. Records must be copied and mailed to vendors. Questions arise regarding notes, symbols and legibility problems. Intervention on the part of local knowledgeable people is essential. When a vendor is digitizing records it is common to have conflicting records, these also must be resolved by local forces. Finally, when the totally digitized records are returned it is the local forces who must do visual and database verification. At ALLTEL we improved upon database validation by having a consultant develop software that would check the database for errors and insure integrity.
Hardware for the CAD/E system has been provided by multiple vendors. Some manufacturers have niche markets or superior products and they cannot be a sole source. At ALLTEL we minimized our vendor relationships to maintain centralized hardware control and to take advantage of volume sales agreements when possible.
Software for the CAD/E system is divided into core or support products. Our core software is from one vendor to assure we have one rulebase for all users. Again the centralized control and volume agreements are administered at one point of contact. Support software that is used for validation, networking or interfaces have been developed by others. We believe the validation software allows a check and balance of the core software. Networking and interfaces are often better handled by specialists.
Networking has changed dramatically since the start of our project. Initially the workstations needed to be close to the processor or connected over dial up modems. This networking is both inefficient, costly, and slow. Responses from commands were not tolerable to most users. We have since migrated to 56K dedicated circuits, used our internal packet network, and will soon move to our ATM network.
Where we are now
Outside plant engineering records conversion is about complete. The landbase records are 100’% digitized, containing about 55,000 square miles. The plant records associated with one million customers was completed at year end 1996. We expect to have 90°/0 of our current customer base of 1.8 million customer lines completed at year end 1997.
Interfaces to our Accounting groups Continuing Property Records system (CPR’S) is complete. When a user final posts a work order the database records are automatically transferred to the continuing property records system for updating.
Our current user base consists of Drafters, OSP Engineers, Planners, Engineering Managers, and the Assignment group.
Major benefits realized
ALLTEL now has clearly legible, to scale outside plant records. We have eliminated the posting and redraw process associated with paper records. We now do long range planning, short range planning and daily activities from the same base records. Accounting has eliminated key punching and input of data to our continuing property records. Engineers have an automatic input to our CPR’s. Outside plant engineers can now perform mechanized loop make ups. We have placed up to date maps and records on our assigners’ desks. They are now more efficient since they are working with up to date information that can be accessed by entering a pole number or street address. We have eliminated a significant numbers of paper records from this work group.
Our project was partially justified by stating that we would minimize the staff growth associated with customer growth. We currently have fewer people in the outside plant engineering group than we had in 1989, and have increased our customer base about 800 thousand customers to about 1.8 million.
Short range plans
We expect to complete conversion of all wireline outside plant records by the year end 1998. We are currently exploring the options and opportunities associated with wireline convergence with wireless information.
Synchronization of timing associated with data between property records, assignment and miscellaneous engineering records will be identified and resolved.
Our present continuing property records and the CAD/E system store redundant records information. Efforts will be directed to the elimination of redundant information after all conversion work is completed.
We will deploy an ALLTEL Network Services group Intranet Web Page. Our Web Site will be accessible to internal users. It will house engineering and technical related Practices and Procedures. Our CAD/E Training guide and Reference documents will be a part of the web page as well as internal and external statistics.
Future
The future will hold many opportunities for the expansion of records availability to all work groups. Marketing has not used our records base or maps, but as we move forward demographic information can be overlaid. By using satellite imagery improvements to the land base, accuracy will occur. The impact of wireless technology will allow another convergence of information.
ALLTEL operates a Network Management Center that provides network surveillance and fault management. They can interact with switching systems and digital loop carrier system to perform software updates and repair outages. The CAD/E graphic records and database will be made available to assist this work group in the resolution of customer impacting events.
Summary
ALLTEL’s overall expenditures to mechanize the outside plant engineering records are near estimates developed in late 1989 and 1990. This has occurred despite so many changes to our company and AM/FM/GIS industry and mapping technology. We believe the decision to mechanize our records has allowed us to take advantage of lower staffing levels notwithstanding dramatic increases in our customer base.
The telephone industry is changing rapidly and the traditional barriers between local service, long distance service, and wireless services are being removed. At ALLTEL we refer to this as convergence. We have embraced this process and are moving forward with unified support staffs and records. Convergence will have an impact on the wireline rulebase and fiture CAD/E plans.
Our previous efforts have well prepared us for the advent of the Intemet, improved GIS modeling, and public access to satellite systems while making us more efficient. We may find that using this improved converging technology may impact some of our previous efforts and require changes in the way we collect and access information. However, the base of information collected and maintained over the last decade is what allows us to take advantage of the new technology for even greater efficiencies across the entire company.