Conference ilbbak::us_sales_service

208.0. "QSM Service moves VAX upgrade" by MRKTNG::EDSON (WISDM is a precious thing) Tue Feb 15 1994 11:30

                 Process assessment allows Alaskan credit union  
                         to invest further in Digital 
   
          A solution from Digital and Quantitative Software Management 
   (QSM) is helping AlaskaUSA Credit Union to stay competitive with other 
   financial institutions.
          The nation's ninth-largest credit union, with assets of around 
   $1.4 billion, and the second largest financial institution in Alaska, 
   AlaskaUSA is also a longtime Digital customer.  When the time came to 
   consider upgrading its existing VAX system, the credit union turned to 
   Digital and QSM for a needs analysis and software process assessment.  
          Officials of AlaskaUSA had learned about QSM, a Digital Partner, 
   at a Digital Corporate Leaders Forum about a year ago, and had been 
   impressed with QSM's process management and project management service 
   offerings and software tools.  
          The credit union requested an evaluation of its software 
   development process.  Don Edson, Digital host manager for QSM, says 
   Digital and QSM analyzed AlaskaUSA's life cycle process, then compared 
   it to others in the credit union industry.  "The assessment, which we 
   turned around in just six weeks, showed that AlaskaUSA's productivity 
   was competitive with that of other credit unions," he says.  
          In addition, the QSM assessment included a comprehensive 
   approach for realizing long- and short-term productivity gains, 
   including improvements in requirements definition, project estimation 
   and testing.  "Furthermore, Digital recommended that AlaskaUSA consider 
   investing in Digital workstations to enhance the VAX system upgrade at 
   the desktop level," says Don.  
          The goals of the assessment were to keep AlaskaUSA the leader in 
   their marketplace and to serve their customers better by improving the 
   computing environment and boosting productivity.
          The evaluation also offered several "what-if" scenarios, which 
   the credit union is using to help them decide on an upgrade to its core 
   data processing system.  AlaskaUSA is looking at three possibilities: a 
   total re-engineering of the system, bringing in a new mainframe, or 
   going to a client/server solution.
          The VAX system upgrade took place last September.  The credit 
   union now uses two clustered, Alpha-ready VAX 7610 systems to run its 
   share and loan accounting system and its ATM transaction authorization 
   applications. 
          The new CPUs will improve data systems performance at AlaskaUSA's 
   branch facilities and will decrease evening batch processing time.  
          The assessment services offered by Digital and QSM are applicable 
   to any customer with a software development organization, in any industry.  
   For more information about bringing this service to customers, contact 
   Don Edson @MKO (MRKTNG::EDSON), DTN 264-5274 or fax him at DTN 264-1916.