Problem Solving

Engineering:
A failing embedded software development project that had been sold as part of a multi-million pound contract with Exxon, was suffering from broken software development practices and low quality software implementation. We assessed and turned the project around in time to meet the contractual requirements, and established an effective in-house research and development function.

Financial Services:
A leading insurance company was demerging to form two separate companies, in a deal worth £2billion. With the completion deadline looming and the customer’s System Integrator struggling to migrate over twenty years’ worth of business data in time, forecasts indicating a three month overrun, we took over and completed the migration within four weeks.

Leisure:
The new complex, multi-system booking solution was slow and unstable. The launch date was fast approaching. Over four weeks, we identified root causes and fixes improving the situation one step at a time. With 48 hours to go until launch, the last critical issue was identified and rectified by patching a third-party application using a back door method in a 2am debugging session.

Manufacturing and Distribution:
Every day, order bottlenecks were affecting guaranteed despatch times. For over two years, the automated order picking and despatching process had been in hypercare, with people working late into the evening to nurse it along. Multiple attempts to identify the cause had failed. Brought in as a last-ditch attempt to solve the problem, we identified the cause and fixed it within one week.

Technology:
Asked to evaluate whether a new software solution would scale, we soon found it wouldn’t. We concluded the code, generally, wasn’t fit for purpose and we rewrote it to ensure its resilience and scalability before handing it back to the client.

Telecommunications:
A high-profile customer self-care project with multiple third-party vendors involved had stalled for three years. The new CIO turned to SQC, trusting us to deal with this challenge as we had solved other problems for them before. Following a rapid situation assessment we then spent eight months leading the project to resolution and roll-out.

Transport:
Intermittent credit card mischarging was threatening the launch of the UK’s first major cycle hire scheme. The Systems Integrator running the project had been struggling with the problem for six months. The senior stakeholder, his flagship policy on the line, was receiving daily updates on this one defect. The search for help ended with SQC. We identified the problem on the first day we looked at it and a fix was implemented within two days.