The South African Post Office Limited (SAPO) is well ahead of schedule with their Y2K compliance project, thanks to among others National Data Systems (NDS). Being the preferred desktop maintenance service provider of SAPO for the past three years on a time and material basisNDS were commissioned to ensure that the dreaded millennium bug would not affect the organisation.
Given the mammoth task of completing the project by April this year, NDS implemented the pilot phase of the Y2K project a week before Christmas last year and concluded its part of the project on all of SAPO`s computer based hardware and software solutions, including Microsoft and SAPO`s own custom-made software, a month and a half ahead of schedule. The hardware testing in itself proved an enormous task with over 1200 vendors products needing to be tested.
To date, SAPO`s head office in Pretoria, all the regional offices including the Western and Eastern Cape, Bloemfontein in the Central area, Kwa-Zulu Natal, as well as all the mail distribution centres country-wide are Y2K compliant. New equipment and the installation of new sites, which is an ongoing project, are currently being tested for Y2K compliance by 18 dedicated on-site NDS engineers at the various centres.
Instead of replacing each system, a millennium card was installed, where necessary, into each of the components by NDS. NDS also implemented a specific software patch ensuring that each time new software is loaded onto any of SAPO`s systems, the patch can be downloaded, thus once again checking for Y2K compliance. This contributed enormously to the cost-effectiveness of the whole project. During the audit phase of the project, NDS also completed a full asset management evaluation of over +/ 4500 of SAPO`s systems/software/assets.
Following on from the success of their Y2K project, SAPO has also commissioned NDS to undertake a post implementation audit on some of the divisions and mail sorting centres of SAPO`s 24 hour Speed Services Courier business unit.
"We have encountered very professional support from both the operational and management levels at NDS," says Karl Bailey, General Manager Treasury and Risk Management at SAPO.
"Due to the fact that the implementation has been completed in record time, we will now be able to complete our Y2K project earlier and obviously, should we encounter any problems, which I do not foresee, we will have more time to address and rectify any issues. The Post Implementation Audit (PIA), for which NDS has also partly been made responsible, is also going extremely well, and we are happy with the progress that is being made," continues Bailey.
"The dedication and discipline of our engineers, as well as the sound customer relationship that we have with SAPO, has resulted in the whole Y2K programme proving to be such a phenomenal success," says NDS` Braam Cilliers, Y2K project leader.
"NDS` knowledge of our environment was crucial from our point of view and the established relationship that we have had with them, made them an obvious choice to conduct this important project for us. Obviously with a project of such magnitude, we required large resources and NDS were able to meet our needs ," continues Bailey.
Having established themselves as major players within the financial arena, NDS is currently involved with many other Y2K projects including the ABSA non-retail rollout, which they are currently implementing. NDS also has a majority market share in the supply of ATM`s, which are presently undergoing Pentium upgrades and Y2K compliance tests.
"Institutions currently involved in this project include Nedcor, whose ATMs are 100% Y2K compliant and Absa which is 99 % compliant. Customers therefore wanting to make cash withdrawals at the start of the millennium will have no need to be concerned that they will be left short-changed," concludes Cilliers.
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