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Westinghouse Rail realigns IT strategy with support from a&o

ITIL consultancy and deployment of ITSM tool Service-now.com within 2 months to improve IT delivery to support business processes 

30 September 2008: a&o systems + services UK Ltd. today announced the provision of IT Service Management consultancy and support for Westinghouse Rail Systems Limited, to assist the IT department in its aim to provide a more strategic role to the business.

Westinghouse Rail is a world leader in railway signalling and control technology, with its products used across Europe and the World on projects such as the London Underground, the Channel Tunnel and the Singapore Metro. When new IT Director Rob McGeechan joined he immediately recognised a need to implement an IT service management tool.

McGeechan comments: “Much of the engineering design and day-to-day work that employees carry out is PC-based, so the IT department plays a vital role in supporting the company and facilitating that. However, the IT Team have previously lacked any strategic involvement, not least because of a lack of confidence in the reliability, flexibility and ongoing development of those day-to-day services. To resolve this we felt it was important to outline a clear developmental path for the IT department, which included putting the ITIL guidelines into practice.”

Westinghouse lacked the internal resources to carry out the project effectively, so engaged IT service management experts a&o to provide consultancy. Following an internal audit, Westinghouse decided to implement Service-now.com, a web-based ITSM tool which can be deployed quickly and efficiently as there is no infrastructure investment. Compared to other tools, Westinghouse felt it was easier to configure as it does not involve any programming languages, and easier to manage as it is fully hosted and backed-up.  

McGeechan says: “Service-now allows you to define the high-level criteria at implementation and then make adjustments as you go, meaning we were able to get up and running, using ServiceNow, within 2 months. Things like tracking requests, reporting and trend analysis are very simple to do, and result in improved customer service. Since starting down the ITIL path and using Service-now, the quantity and quality of the IT department’s communication at user-level has improved dramatically and our internal customers now have more confidence in the IT team’s ability to take care of the basics.”

By following the ITIL guidelines, Westinghouse has improved the efficiency of the IT department and enabled them to focus on more strategic projects.  This has resulted in the IT team feeling more part of the business as whole, rather than simply being reactive. Since deploying the Service-now tool, Westinghouse has already started to explore other areas where they can use the tool; this will allow other parts of the business to benefit from a standardised Service Management platform across the business.

Adrian Cooper, Business Development Director at a&o, comments: “The ITIL guidelines provide an excellent way to ensure that the IT department is delivering value and is aligned to the strategic direction of the business. The experience of Westinghouse demonstrates that by deploying Service-now, these benefits can be realised in much shorter timeframes than is traditionally the case with other IT service management tools.”

For more information, contact press@aogroup.co.uk