Advanced Software Technologies (AST) Vaal Triangle in Vanderbijlpark has implemented Cayenne ObjectTeam, supplied by Software Futures, as the modelling tool for its object technology (OT) rollout.
This follows on the company`s decision to explore OT solutions to allow it to cope more easily with ongoing change. As a consequence, AST has captured, in one commonly accessed repository, the shared knowledge of all personnel involved in the OT project.
Iscor has outsourced its IT requirements to AST, which recently acquired Iscor`s IT processing arm, ITI. Christine Jacobs, senior system analyst at AST Vaal Triangle, says the decision to go the OT route was prompted by the pace of the steel industry and the constant change of business process.
"The project team decided in 1997 to deploy a pilot project that would replicate the functionality of our Cobol-based Rail Transport System," says Jacobs. "We implemented this using PowerBuilder running against Oracle in a three-tier client/server configuration. The success of this project will determine our future commitment to OT across the business."
A development team has mapped the object models to the relational database, and then to PowerBuilder. All of this made the modelling of the objects mandatory, says Jacobs.
"You just can`t do systems of such complexity without modelling them first," Jacobs asserts. "ObjectTeam has given us the ability to share views of the business. It has eased construction of our prototypes; made for easier communication in extracting user requirements; allowed us to have a closer correlation between IT and users` needs; and perpetuated knowledge to protect the business against inevitable personnel turnover."
The project team has opted for the incremental approach in developing its OT systems, says Jacobs, rather than the waterfall approach. "This has allowed us to develop systematically, to deliver the system to the users in small iterations, and to change and adapt easily."
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