OCS Consulting - 30 Years of making IT Happen

Profile of Assignments

Technology

Java Application Development & Support

Large UK Retailer

As a pioneer in the use of Java with this customer more than 12 years ago, OCS has successfully developed and supported a wide range of applications used both internally and by the general public in their extensive retail estate. In particular more than 10 years ago, OCS took over the development and support of a fully integrated customer point of sale system and over that time have been involved in the development of numerous added value features that have allowed this organisation to remain at the leading edge of multi-channel sales offerings.

Car Leasing Organisation 

OCS began working with this large car leasing organisation in 2009, helping them to merge two specialist lines of business with the larger car leasing area. In order to consolidate the businesses, significant input was needed to adapt the back-office systems. OCS, having the technical expertise needed, was brought in to help. After successfully carrying out this onsite consultation, we were asked to provide on-going support, along with assisting their development teams with Java technical resources. Our on-going, long-term relationship is a result of our exceptionally high standard of service delivery, along with the our broad range of technical skills enabling us to continue to provide a flexible and responsive service to our customers needs.

High Street / Online Retailer

As part of their investment in online sales this traditional high street retailer were looking for a partner to enhance their online capability to deliver functionality covering user experience when making multiple purchases, improved installer application package and cross browser integrity. OCS was approached by the Project Manager who had previously worked with us whilst at another customer and recommended us for the job. OCS provided flexible project services working within an Agile environment, designing and managing the upgrade project which resulted in a successful and on-time delivery.

International Logistics Company

With a track record of nearly 20 years working with this international organisation, OCS were the ideal partner for a joint venture development to create an integration automation solution for large retail and consumer organisations. Expertise in Java was key to building a solution that would both integrate sophisticated automation equipment, create user engagement with workflow and communicate in real time with control and management systems both locally and internationally. Following the development and early marketing success, OCS now provide a full application support service covering international 1st to 3rd line support for all elements of the solution.

International Publishing House

OCS became involved with this publishing house in 2010 when the organisation was migrating their in-house system to an outsourced solution. OCS provided skilled staff based Java resources to work onsite, helping with the migration and providing various interfaces with the internal systems. The successful delivery of this project has resulted in further projects utilising the skills of OCS' Java Development teams. These have included the implementation and integration of a third party payment gateway and more recently the development of a dedicated website to hold large volumes of documents which are fully searchable whilst maintaining a desirable user experience.

A global online gaming company

OCS provided a multi-disciplined managed service project team comprising .NET and Java developers working closely with this customer's Java and Oracle team in validating design and implementing an innovative online gaming product - Multiples. In addition to delivering a rich customer experience through the use of AJAX, the Multiples product has a scalable service oriented architecture using advanced distributed caching techniques. Agile development methods were utilised to maximise the productivity of the Java Developer team whilst accommodating refinement of the functional specification throughout the project. Following successful delivery, core members of the OCS Java team were retained to provide post-implementation support before moving onto the next phase of development.

Car Manufacturer

This international car manufacturer contacted OCS in 2011 after outsourcing their internal IT development department for cost efficiency. However, in doing so, felt persistent quality issues and poor communication were affecting the development and support of IT systems which led the business to source third party providers. OCS proposed a new model highlighting the underlying issue seemed to be the off-site element of the outsource which was significantly impacting communication and failing to provide any residual systems knowledge to build upon - the new model would consist of OCS having staff at the customer's site. This on-site model is continuing to successfully deliver thanks to an OCS core Java development team supporting the customer's IT requirements which includes support, maintenance, development and strategy.

FMCG

OCS first started working with this global FMCG in 2008 working on and maintaining a buying system, OCS had a member of staff support the legacy software components of the buying system when the company decided they wanted to globalise their support network. Thanks to the strong relationship we had formed with their team while working as support staff, they entrusted us with supporting and maintaining all of this particular buying system worldwide. This system is a vital aspect of production to the business as it allows the company to calculate what to buy in each country and is now used all over the world.

SAS Software

Leading Insurance Organisation

Development of several bespoke web applications for the SAS Information Delivery Portal.

Projects include:

  • creating a dynamic SAS OLAP cubeviewer
  • implementing integrated security (including Microsoft SharePoint)
  • creating Insurance benchmark reports
  • online Data Entry application
  • Technology: SAS 9.4, Information Delivery Portal, Bespoke web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript,AJAX, DI Studio

The system is being actively used by the members of the Insurance Association.

Leading International Bank

Support and maintenance of the SAS environment.

  • a SAS environment has been set up in order to support a Technical support service containing 2nd line help-desk, technical maintenance and support
  • Technology: SAS 9.2, CRMB, RMFB,DI Server, Enterprise Guide

A service level agreement, containing proactive maintenance, help desk support on category 1-3 problems, out-of-hours support, monitoring and reporting on the SAS environment and ad-hoc additional technical service.

European Logistics Service

Support and maintenance of the SAS environment.

  • Within this Logistics organisation the SAS environment is used as a BI reporting tool using SAS Web report studio. The data preparation is executed using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Batch jobs
  • Technology: SAS 9.2, EnterpriseGuide, WRS.

OCS Consulting supports the BI department with the monitoring of batch jobs, generating the DataMart and creating web reports.

Leading Health Insurance Provider

Migration of the client's BI/DI environment from SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.3 and the installation of SAS Visual Analytics (SAS 9.4)

  • The migration project included a migration of 2 development server sand 2 production servers. The installation of the new environment was performed on a clean Windows installation, to which the metadata content was migrated. As part of the project, several change requests and improvements were implemented on the new environment
  • Technology: SAS 9.2 64 bitW2008R2, BI / DI Server, Enterprise Guide (App-V client), SAS 9.3 64 bitW2008R2, SAS 9.4 Visual Analytics

The migration was completed successfully within time and budget and the environment is now supported by OCS Consulting.

Leading Financial Services Organisation

Migration of the client's SAS environment from SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.3.

  • The migration project included the migration of a complete DTAP street and a "self-service" production environment. The project was executed in several stages, migrating D, T, A, P and Self-service. Using this approach, most issues would be encountered and resolved in the Development environment, thereby minimising required downtime on the production and self-service environment.
  • Technology: SAS 9.2 64 bit W2k8/Unix, BI Server, Enterprise Miner, App-V clients, SAS 9.3 64 bit.

The migration was successfully completed on time and within budget. OCS Consulting will undertake the next migration project from SAS 9.3 to SAS 9.4.

European Parking Services Provider

Installation of the SAS foundations and Visual Analytics

  • Client wanted to give access to their external customers via web through SAS Visual Analytics. As SSO was already set up, a fall-back authentication needed to be configured in order for external users to be able to authenticate. Also configuration on external access to both SAS Visual Analytics Viewer and Transportation Services (for iPad) required. 
  • Technology: SAS 9.4 foundations, Visual Analytics 6.3 SMP.

A fully operational SAS Visual Analytics environment with customer requirements is in place.

Financial Institution

Migration of the client's SAS "Self-Service" environment from SAS 9.13 to SAS 9.3 bit.

  • Technical and functional migration of the client's "self-service" production environment, used by 10 different departments within the organisation. The system was mainly used for period reporting during which the environment was "frozen" for a number of weeks. The approach was to install the new SAS environment on a new system and then migrate department by department using "trial migrations". During the project several "quick wins" were identified and added to the project scope as change requests.
  • Technology: SAS 9.1.3 32 bit W2003, SAS BI Server, Enterprise Guide (Citrix client), SAS 9.3 64 bit W2008R2.

The migration was successfully completed with less than 10% overrun in duration, within budget and before the deadline. 

A service level agreement, containing proactive maintenance, help-desk support on category 1-3 problems, out-of-hours support, monitoring and reporting on the SAS environment and ad-hoc additional technical service.

The migration was completed successfully within time and budget and the environment is now supported by OCS Consulting.

PowerBuilder Application Development & Support

International Food Retailer

OCS Consulting are currently working on application support of a shop based management system for an international high street food retailer, which is being used in over 350 stores globally. Environment: PowerBuilder 2017R3 / PFC.

UN Organisation

OCS worked with this UN Organisation to upgrade its pension system from PowerBuilder 12.5 to PowerBuilder 2017R3, including some enhancements to the systems functionality.

London Market Insurer

Currently assisting with change requests and bug fixing for the Market Entity system currently in PowerBuilder 11.5. This application is core to their business, controlling the relationships between all the different entities internally and this system then feeds all other systems within the clients business.

Global FMCG

OCS Consulting has been providing this global FMCG PowerBuilder 9 application development, maintenance and support since 2008 This system controls the sales process including; sales orders, purchase orders, full reporting, forward contracts and forecasting. Based on this success and OCS’ strong knowledge of the domain, the client awarded OCS the contract to take over full support of the departmental applications as the client decided to move to a full global support model.

OCS was able to take on, not only the modern technology aspects of the applications, but also to take responsibility for all 3rd party software within the suite, providing the client with a one-stop-shop remote support service, linking directly into their international help-desk system.

Belgian Bank

OCS worked with a Belgian bank to upgrade large PowerBuilder systems from PowerBuilder 12.6 to PowerBuilder 2017R3.  The assignment, which included working on and off-site, included the redevelopment of a number of applications to resolve performance issues, and the adoption of GIT for source control.

International Car Manufacturer

OCS Consulting has had a relationship with this client spanning 25 years. Recent assignments include the implementation and migration of PowerBuilder 11.1 on their existing Sales Order Processing System. This system controls the sales process including; sales orders, purchase orders, full reporting, control of demo fleet and client facing letters. The system has been designed for international deployment encompassing database driven facilities for language selection and multiple currency capability. The Application is based on PFC.

OCS designed and implemented the technical solution using PowerBuilder 11.1 against SQL Server 2005, undertook Unit and System testing, and providing ad-hoc support and maintenance.

UN Organisation

OCS worked with this UN Organisation to undertake an Upgrade Impact Analysis for the migration of a PowerBuilder 9 /SQL Server 2008 application to current supported versions. We performed the upgrade by upgrading applications from PowerBuilder 9 to PowerBuilder 12.6 and SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012 and supported all stages of the Project/SDLC.

Personality Profiling Company

Provided training support to internal development personnel using PowerBuilder 10/11 and MS SQL Server 2000/2005 over a number of years.

Global Car Manufacturer

OCS Consulting has been working with this Global Car Manufacturer since 2012 undertaking: 

  • PowerBuilder development, upgrades and testing. Upgrades from version 12.0 to 12.5.1 and then to 12.6, and to 2017R3
  • Microsoft SQL Server development and upgrade, version 2008 to 2012
  • Maintenance and development of existing and new database processes as the requirements of the business have evolved
  • Handling live support issues raised by the business in a wide variety of areas. Including analysis of data and process to determine cause and scope of issues raised, proposal and implementation of data corrections, identification of system issues during normal operations and when there has been disruption to systems.
  • Liaised with the business to specify and implement enhancements to existing systems.
  • Liaised with 3rd parties from a technical standpoint, to ensure the transition from one major supplier to another was as smooth as possible.
  • Java and .NET analysis, support and development services. 

European Manufacturer of Printers and Related Products

OCS Consulting assisted with the migration of a suite of eighteen PowerBuilder applications from PowerBuilder 7.2 to PowerBuilder 11. Prepared and aided the client with testing of the migrated applications, preparing the test beds, managing the test stream and supporting issue resolution.

International Consultancy to Power Industry

Since 2002, OCS Consulting has been working with this consultancy and having responsibility for the development and maintenance of meter processing and invoicing systems for several power stations. Key activities have included:

  • Created real-time metering data processing via Windows Services, SQL stored procedures and linked MS SQL servers
  • Migrated PowerBuilder applications from version 9 to 11
  • Migrated MS SQL Server databases from SQL Server 2000 to 2005
  • Created and modified stored procedures in MS SQL Server 2000/2005 to evaluate complex formulae for the production of monthly invoices
  • Created data load macros in Excel using VBA
  • Modified front-end PowerBuilder application for the display and export of invoice details and to allow user modification of appropriate variables
  • Created new PowerBuilder applications to assist with error reporting and the acquisition and pre-processing of plant data.

International Telecoms Group

Development project to enhance a core subscriber management and billing system to enable the introduction of Pay Per View services to cable TV customers. Developed with PowerBuilder, Sybase ASE in a Windows environment.