See www.computing.co.uk/awards for all the details of the Computing Awards for Excellence 2006.
BP
BP refineries, chemical plants and other industrial sites periodically undergo major overhauls called turnarounds, where equipment is shut down for testing and maintenance.
During such turnarounds, sites generate no revenue, meaning the cost of downtime is enormous. This led the company to develop and deploy a wireless mobile task management system with the potential to save tens of millions of dollars annually.
Previously, BP used paper-based tracking, involving thousands of signatures and presenting a huge potential for bottlenecks. The Task Tracker system, developed in partnership with supplier Syclo, controls work assignments and provides status details in real time to workers via handheld devices, as well as tracking equipment via RFID tags. An innovative wireless mesh network lets the system work even in wireless-unfriendly heavy metal environments.
Following successful deployments at its Hull chemical plant and Coryton refinery, BP is now planning to roll out the system more widely.
Southern Rail
In September 2005, Southern Rail became the first operator in the world to offer customers broadband internet access on trains. In partnership with service provider T-Mobile and technology supplier Nomad Digital, Southern launched a T-Mobile HotSpot service on its London to Brighton service.
Previous attempts by other operators to use GPRS to provide internet access had failed to provide a fast or reliable service. For the project to succeed, Southern built an 82km private WiMax network corridor along the length of the line, capable of delivering reliable 32Mbit/s connections in both directions.
The service has proved immensely popular with commuters, who are increasingly staggering their journeys because they know they will be able to work effectively on the train. The knock-on benefit has been to reduce crowding on trains at peak times, making journeys more pleasant for commuters and reducing the pressure on Southern’s infrastructure.
London Stock Exchange
This year the London Stock Exchange (LSE) experienced the first fruits of an ambitious four-year programme to migrate to a new generation of .Net-based trading and information systems with the implementation of Infolect. This is a real-time market data system which significantly speeds up the dissemination of information.
In the lightning-fast financial markets, where automated algorithms rely on real-time information to make trading decisions, every millisecond of delay adds to a financial institution’s exposure and risk. Infolect has reduced end-to-end message latency from 30 to two milliseconds and since the implementation the Exchange has had 19 of its top 20 trading days in history.
The system uses a tiered, multicast messaging architecture and is underpinned by some 100 commodity servers, broadcasting more than 12 million messages daily to over 100,000 terminals.
Alliance & Leicester
An internet banking security system introduced by Alliance & Leicester (A &L) paid for itself within two months and is boosting customer take-up of online banking services.
In March, the bank rolled out a two-way authentication system from Passmark Security to its entire online user b ase – more than one million customers.
Unlike other two-way security solutions, A&L’s system does not require customers to use additional hardware such as tokens or fingerprint scanners.
Instead, it uses an innovative ‘behind the scenes’ authentication algorithm to record the characteristics of the computers used regularly by customers, challenging access from suspected or unregistered IP addresses. Two-way authentication is assured by displaying a phrase and image unique to each customer, cutting the risk of phishing and identity theft.
Nats
A next-generation radar surveillance system has dramatically improved low-level air traffic safety across the south-east of England.
Air traffic control service Nats successfully introduced the technology, Mode S, across London Terminal Control airspace, an area handling more than 1.3 million flights a year.
The previous system, Mode A/C, worked on a call-and-receive basis, and replies from aircraft in close proximity could become garbled.
Also, the labels on the controller’s radar screen could overlap when airspace was congested, obscuring critical information such as the height of the aircraft. Mode S overcomes these problems by connecting control systems to on-board transponders which provide Nats with real-time data from individual aircraft.
‘Mode S provides significant safety benefits, including resolving communication errors and checking speed compliance,’ said Simon Hocquard, general manager of Nats’ air traffic control centre at West Drayton.
Orange
A two-year project to drive forward the functionality, speed and automation of Orange’s online shop has boosted web orders, and is set to save the company £4m over the next five years through an 85 per cent reduction in manual processing staff.
Working with supplier AKQA, Orange inte grated the site into its back-office Netonomy, SAP and bespoke software, removing slow manual processes and inefficient links between systems. The result, which went live in March, is a fully automated, end-to-end system with online credit checking, live stock feeds and next-day delivery.
The online shop also uses Macromedia technology to deliver rich internet applications such as a phone trainer and phone comparison tool. These guide customers through the phone purchasing decision, and online order conversion rate for phone packages has doubled since the implementation.
The store accounts for more than 10 per cent of Orange’s total volumes and more than 25 per cent of its profit.
See www.computing.co.uk/awards for more.
Further reading:
Computing Awards 2006 - the shortlist is announced
Industry Awards shortlists - who will be your suppliers of the year?
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