This customer success story gives a detailed insight into how SAP and our partners work closely together to offer a complete service to our customers. The case study focuses on the IT infrastructure and hardware configuration sizing elements of the project (rather than the full SAP software implementation).

Launching the future

How hp consulting helped the RNLI save time and money by running a tighter ship. The e-business age is not only for brisk new start-ups intent on carving out lucrative market niches or stealing business from established corporate giants. Every organisation can reap the benefits of deploying sophisticated information technologies to cut costs and achieve speed, flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. RNLI, with the help of hp consulting, has done exactly that.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is no newcomer. Founded in 1824 by Sir William Hillary as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, the modern RNLI provides, on call, a 24-hour service to cover search and rescue needs up to 50 miles from the coast of the UK and the Irish Republic. Last year its lifeboats launched on over 6,500 missions an average of 18 a day assisted over 5,500 people and saved 1,030 people from otherwise fatal perils at sea.

But to achieve such stunning results nationwide the charity has major funding and administrative needs. It operates 224 lifeboat stations with an active fleet of 307 lifeboats backed by a relief fleet of 113. And keeping the lifeboat fleet up to scratch does not come cheap. The more basic inshore boats start at 14,000 a piece; the most expensive all-weather boats, like the 17 metre Severn, cost 1,800,000. The average cost of launching a lifeboat including all support costs can be as high as 5,800 a time. The 4,300 volunteer crew members including over 200 women receive a few pounds each call-out to cover expenses.

Since it was founded more than 175 years ago RNLI has saved over 134,000 lives. So saving lives at sea costs a great deal of money. But RNLI is a charity; it depends on voluntary contributions and bequests to pay the bills. Clearly, the better the organisation becomes at fund-raising, administration, procurement and other operational activities the greater its income and the further its budgets will stretch. In the autumn of 1999, RNLI decided to overhaul its information management systems as part of a broader strategy to modernise its business methods and deliver a better service within an SAP environment. From a shortlist of three major IT names, RNLI chose HP.

It is the value of the overall services package that made the difference. Whatever concern we raised, HP could bring along someone who could talk sensibly about it, said Richard Miles of RNLI.

What those hp consulting people were talking about was how to provide infrastructure for a SAP project that would manage the entire information needs of the charity. Up to 1999 its 175th anniversary the RNLI, being no stranger to IT, had made extensive use of both package and in-house developed applications running on Data General equipment. However these applications were not well integrated and formal support for them was terminated at the end of 2000. There were also parts of the business that were still using paper systems.

Yet over the years RNLI had grown into the equivalent of a medium-sized business, with administrative challenges to match. It employs 850 staff, with 400 people in their headquarters in Poole, a further 100 at the Inshore Lifeboat Centre in Cowes, 16 staff, with additional help from a varying number of part-timers, at the Fulfilment Centre in Thirsk and the rest spread across the country in regional offices, divisional bases and lifeboat stations. On top of this there were considerable logistics requirements geared to keeping boats and buildings in good order. What was needed was a charity-wide information system that could handle everything from monthly accounts, funds collection and individual expenses claims to sourcing spare parts and materials.

In short, RNLI needed a sophisticated IT infrastructure that could look after finances, HR administration, supply chain management and every other aspect of running a countrywide organisation. It opted for an SAP environment and needed expert help to design and implement a new infrastructure. The timeframe was desperately short a matter of months.

The shortlist of contenders for the project read like an IT Hall of Fame: HP, IBM and Sun. For RNLI there were key considerations that would influence the decision, above all the range of capabilities on offer and the promise of a committed long-term relationship.

What swung it for us was the breadth of services available from HP, says Richard Miles. This meant we were always talking to them. It was a seamless process, even when the specialist involved was not necessarily an HP person. It says a lot about how HP choose their people, both internally and externally.

The hp consulting team, led by Lawrence Penheiro, faced two interrelated challenges: designing an IT infrastructure to deliver a total solution while also managing the migration from the DG legacy system to its replacement without disruption of day-to-day operations. Both had to be tackled at the same time. What they needed, says Lawrence, was an IT solution that could run the entire organisation, right up to board level, and also be flexible enough to expand and adapt as needs changed in the future.

First, hp consulting undertook a feasibility study on the migration from old system to new. Its recommendations were accepted by RNLI and the real task began in earnest, with hp consulting acting as prime contractor. It inherited work-in-progress on a fundraising package (Charisma) being customised by Minerva, with no end-date in sight. Working proactively with Minerva, hp consulting agreed a collaborative approach to migration that greatly accelerated the process. By the time the migration project was signed off in May 2000 everything was up and running in the hp consulting environment in readiness for Charisma to go live.

The other project, to be run concurrently, was to size the hardware configuration needed to accommodate the SAP system. hp consulting was keen to employ hardware that was neither over-sized nor over-specified. Here, they worked closely with SAP, prime contractors for the Flagship project, to determine what kind of server would be needed. finally, hp consulting developed an infrastructure solution based on a SAN architecture that was both scalable and flexible much to the surprise and delight of RNLI, which had relied for so long on small, outmoded units.

To ensure an imaginative and relevant IT infrastructure design, hp consulting brought in a solutions architect as part of the team. An N-class server was seen as the most appropriate choice, backed by an FC-60 storage device. This compact, high-capacity storage system was ideal for the small computer rooms at RNLI; it also offered great flexibility and high levels of availability. This enabled hp consulting to design an infrastructure that met SAP s blueprint requirement for a compact footprint coupled with good performance, but which also gave RNLI the freedom to add a disaster recovery solution at a later date.

This further phase involves building a second computer room and splitting the overall system across the RNLI site. Disaster recovery is essential if the organisation is to get its systems up and running quickly were its computer room to be destroyed or seriously damaged by fire, flood or some other catastrophe. hp consulting was determined to give RNLI a cost-effective solution that would save the charity money in the long term. By giving the option of a parallel system in a separate building they avoided the need for a wheel-in back-up, divided the risk and guaranteed high availability while RNLI built their IT capability back to full capacity. And choosing this route would give payback on the investment within four years.

Despite the complexities, hp consulting achieved rapid implementation. Their involvement began in September 1999 with the aim of completing both the Migration and SAP projects within 2000. The SAP project went live in two phases at the beginning of April and June 2000. The Charisma system went live at the end of June 2000. The project to build a second computer room commenced in October 2000 and is expected to complete in March 2001. But for RNLI the most impressive aspect has been the strength of creative thinking and committed relationship that has come from hp consulting throughout their involvement.

What weve experienced in practice has underlined why we chose HP and hp consulting in the first place, says Miles. Project management is an important part of this relationship and Lawrence offers that. I couldnt tolerate a situation where you are talking to half a dozen people inside an organisation constantly repeating yourself. At RNLI, whilst our IT staff are all IT professionals, we can never hope to be as close to the leading edge as HP; the experts. But with hp consulting you never get the feeling youre being talked down to.

Meanwhile, the business of saving lives goes on. The autumn of 2000 saw RNLI volunteer crews in unaccustomed action despatching inshore lifeboats to rescue victims of floods that swept through south-east England in early October. For RNLI it confirmed the wisdom of their decision to accept hp consultings recommendation on disaster recovery systems. At the height of the floods the charitys South-East Regional fund-raising offices in River Way found themselves under three feet of water. Not a disaster, but certainly a reminder of just how unpredictable, and dangerous, the elements can be.

• Click here to download this Case Study in PDF Format.