Wolverhampton City Council

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Wolverhampton City Council

Fujitsu was asked to design and project manage the roll-out of a Windows 2000-based network infrastructure, including the provision of training. Fujitsu developed a standard build for the Council’s desktop PCs, incorporating Windows XP, Office XP and providing access to corporate e-mail and the Internet.

The Challenge

As one of 25 ‘Pathfinder’ authorities for the Government’s Local Government Online initiative, Wolverhampton City Council is seeking to transform the delivery of its services to the 250,000 citizens of Wolverhampton by developing electronic methods to deliver services, work with other agencies and involve local people.

However, with a largely IBM mainframe-based IT infrastructure, the Council needed to move towards a client-server, distributed architecture and replace nearly 4,000 legacy Windows 3.1 workstations and dumb mainframe screens with standardised desktop PCs.

The Solution

Fujitsu was asked to design and project manage the roll-out of a Windows 2000-based network infrastructure, including the provision of training.

As well as creating the Windows 2000 server infrastructure, Fujitsu developed a standard build for the Council’s desktop PCs, incorporating Windows XP, Office XP and providing access to corporate e-mail and the Internet.

The project was delivered on time and to budget in just three months, and the new system is being rolled-out progressively to the Council’s 4,000 users. Fahri Zihni, Chief ICT Officer, Wolverhampton City Council, says, "Fujitsu provided the Council with a combination of technical and strategic consultancy, which ensured that the new Windows 2000 infrastructure is fully aligned with our strategic policy objectives of efficiency and value for money."

The Benefits

As well as enabling Wolverhampton City Council to comply with the Government’s mandate for joined up government the new, standardised Windows 2000 network infrastructure is also ensuring:

• Improved service delivery and more open communications with customers
• Faster and more effective internal communications and knowledge sharing
• Greater staff productivity with common applications, shared data and more desktop power
• Future proofed IT investment with clear upgrade path
• Improved use of resources and skills
• Reduced support costs, with a single operating system and standardised applications
• Greater operational stability and less risk using proven technology.

Fahri Zihni comments, “The Windows 2000 project is a clear demonstration of how the public and private sectors can work in partnership to develop robust and reliable systems that deliver significant, long-term benefits.”

The Implementation

As part of the design and development process Fujitsu developed a Proof of Concept test system in order to de-risk the project and provide Wolverhampton City Council with a clear demonstration of the system’s functionality.

Fujitsu also developed the system documentation and undertook the skills transfer necessary to provide the Council with the confidence to manage the initial implementation and ongoing roll-out of the solution.

The Expertise

In a competitive evaluation held in 2000 Wolverhampton City Council chose Fujitsu as its preferred supplier of consultancy services, under a three-year framework agreement.

“From a standing start three years ago we have developed a close working relationship with Fujitsu,” adds Fahri Zihni. “It now understands our strategic requirements and can provide us with access to everything from high level policy advice to an extensive pool of highly skilled technical resources.”