Establish a strategy for integration and implementation of new equipment into an existing system

Organisational requirements

Identify organisational requirements

Strategic planning for new technology

Importance of strategies and planning

Technology strategy

Integration and implementation strategies

Uses and benefits of technology roadmaps

Mini implementation plan

Testing

Testing a prototype

The test plan

Types of testing

Removing redundant equipment

Services required for removal of equipment

Procedures for removal of equipment

Summary

Check your progress

Organisational requirements

You must carefully analyse and diagnose organisational requirements before introducing new equipment. With the integration of new equipment into any existing system, change is unavoidable and it is usually accepted in the expectation that it would bring about improvement. Therefore, the first rule in managing technology is to ensure that the desired outcomes are aligned with organisational requirements and achievable.

Technology investments must deliver value to all stakeholders by meeting specific organisational requirements. The integration and implementation of new equipment is an investment in technology and should also be expected to deliver value by being put to appropriate business use according to organisational requirements.

Identify organisational requirements

The following questions will help you to identify the organisational requirements with regard to new technology:

  • What are the current priorities of the organisation?
  • Is the organisation expecting to grow in the near future? If so, what is the extent of the expected growth?
  • Will the organisational needs change in the near future?
  • Does the organisation have any budgetary constraints?
  • How capable are the end users with regard to adapting to the new technologies introduced? How much training would they need?

Strategic planning for new technology

Most new technology fails when it is implemented without proper assessment of the factors that caused the technology to be introduced in the first place. For successful technology implementation, you must first analyse the business requirement that alerted the need for new equipment in the first place. This is usually found in the IT strategic plan and business strategic plan. As part of the technology strategy, you must follow a systematic procedure to ensure the successful integration of new equipment into the existing system.

Importance of strategies and planning

Strategy is defined as an elaborate and systematic action to get something done. Once a company’s goals and objectives are established, each division must establish strategies to support the company goals and objectives.

Strategic planning is essential for the successful running of any business in order to improve customer service and increase efficiency. Strategic planning gives direction to the acquisition and integration of new technology. All important equipment implementations must be carried out with thoughtful planning within the framework of these strategies.

Technology strategy

When introducing new equipment into any existing system, you must comply with the technology strategy of the organisation because this will:

  • Reduce completion time and accelerate the progress by providing a framework for integrating new technology into the existing system.
  • Reduce total IT costs through appropriate technology selection as well as improve software development and package selection decisions.
  • Enable increased return on your technology investments.
  • Provide a competitive advantage through the strategic use of information technologies.

Integration and implementation strategies

As discussed above, following a systematic procedure can ensure the successful integration of new equipment into an existing system. You can develop procedures appropriate to your organisation by selecting from the following strategies.

  • Identify all stakeholders and take their input into account when formulating a strategy for integration and implementation of new equipment.
  • Map the organisation’s business goals into the information technology requirements.
  • Align the IT requirements to existing infrastructure to identify areas that need to be supported by the new equipment.
  • Check the readiness of the IT infrastructure to accept the new equipment. This is critical for the success of your new technology implementation. The organisation must have a strong technology foundation before new equipment could be introduced into the organisation. You must evaluate features such as connectivity, security and level of integration. Then you must test that the new equipment is appropriate for integration into the existing system.
  • Measure success. Strategies must be established to measure success of the new equipment at each stage of the implementation.
  • Plan a rollout strategy that may be based on any one of these: department, job function, physical location and alphabetical order
  • You may decide to have a pilot rollout to iron out problems progressively rather than involving and hence affecting the entire system. In this case, you may install the new system only on a few machines and progressively add users to the new system.
  • When you are planning a rollout strategy always assume that something will go wrong. Therefore, you must plan your rollout strategy based upon how much risk the organisation can handle and how long it will take to recover from a failure. For the same reason, roll out strategy must be accompanied by a backup and contingency plan as well.
  • It is always a good idea to involve users in developing a rollout strategy that works for them.
  • Establish effective IT support strategies by reviewing
    and extending IT support policies and services to include the new equipment.

Uses and benefits of technology roadmaps

The technology strategy must be aligned with the corporate strategy. The technology roadmap helps to do this by outlining what the technology can and should do to move the business in the direction of the stated goals. Technology roadmaps have the following uses and benefits:

  • Technology roadmaps give a clear view of the needs of the organisation and what technologies can be used to satisfy those needs.
  • The road map gives clear direction for the experts to follow and forecast the technology developments in certain areas.
  • The technology roadmap provides a framework for planning and coordinating technology developments of the organisation. It helps the managers to make better decisions about technology investment.
  • Through technology roadmaps one can identify the technologies that are critical for improving the performance of the organisation. It also enables technology gaps to be identified and then filled to get better performance from the organisation.
  • In large organisation, IT professionals can identify areas that need research and development through technology maps.

Refer to the Research section of this topic for more information on technology roadmaps.

Mini implementation plan

Implementation planning forms an integral part of integrating new technology into an organisation. Numerous projects have been jeopardised by time and cost overruns due to inadequate planning. Therefore, once the decision is made to introduce new equipment, an implementation plan must be carefully formulated by taking the following aspects into account:

Activities

A table outlining each activity and associated sub-activities in implementing the new equipment must be identified.

Time plan

Realistic and sufficient time must be allocated for each activity identified above. This schedule is probably best presented in the form of a Gantt chart showing the planned time periods for implementing each of the defined activity. You can see examples of Gantt charts by following the link ‘Gantt charts and calendars’ at the SmartDraw website Commercial project management software such as Microsoft Project could also be used as a tool for developing a time plan.

Milestones must be established to ensure that activities are carried out according to the time plan throughout the duration of the project. (A milestones is an event which is selected to signify that certain project activities have been completed.) Table 1 below presents an example of milestone documentation.

Table 1: Example of milestone documentation

Milestone / Description / Dependency / Resources / Due Date
1 / Requirements analysis / 0 / 4 / 15 March 2006
2 / Verification / 1 / 2 / Ongoing
3 / Requirement solution / 1 / 3 / 31 March 2006
4 / Equipment installation / 3 / 7 / 30 June 2006

Total project time must be estimated. Activities that are time critical must be identified in order to take greater care in performing these activities on time, as these activities, if delayed, will cause time over-runs in the project.

This proposed project schedule then becomes a key document for capital and expense budgeting.

Resources

Personnel, materials, computer equipment, utilities, and funds must be identified and allocated. You need to get a very clear idea as to who is doing what and using what resources during implementation.

Testing

New equipment must be tested to verify its functionality, performance and reliability before being integrated into the existing system. All components within the system must be tested to ensure that they interact correctly.

Testing a prototype

This is a strategy you could use to ensure that the new equipment will work with the existing system. It will be wise to set up a prototype and verify that the new equipment solution is capable of meeting the requirements of the organisation and integrates well with the existing system.

The test plan

The test plan is a document that provides and records information about scope, resources and schedule of intended test activities. It generally outlines the following:

  • test plan identifier, scope and objective of the test
  • any referencessuch as manual for equipment, CD ROMs, URLs, etc
  • introduction
  • test items (features to be tested), inputs and expected outputs, item pass/fail criteria
  • features not to be tested
  • test approach
  • test deliverables
  • test schedule.

Before a test plan is implemented you must have a deep understanding of the organisational requirements for the new technology. You should have eliminated ambiguous, incomplete and inconsistent requirements during the implementation planning stage to speed up the testing process.

The test plan must be written down, as there could be a number of people involved in the testing process. Their input must be coordinated with a written test plan. All critical aspects of the new equipment must be covered in the test plan.

Supposing you are introducing a new printer. Part of your test plan would include the items shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Test plan for introducing a new printer

Test case / Input / Expected output / Pass / Fail
Installation and general connectivity / Printer manual, components, software drivers / Components connected and working together
Printer connectivity / Connect printer cable and power cable. Printer turned on. / Printer detected.
Correct printer driver installed / Print test page. / Test page with correct output.
Functionality and performance / Five print jobs each with 20 pages. / Must match with the printer’s ppm (pages per minute) specified.

Types of testing

Testing could be a combination of ad-hoc testing, systematic testing and automated testing.

Ad-hoc testing

With ad-hoc testing, the test cases are made on the fly. It does not cover all aspects of the new technology. An example of this would be using the new printer device just to see whether you can force it to fail.

Systematic testing

With systematic testing, a test suite is designed to cover all aspects of the new equipment introduced. The test plan would specify the outputs expected from each test. Systematic tests are repeatable to ensure that errors found in earlier tests are eliminated. Systematic tests must be documented to keep track of the tests performed and the results obtained. An example of this would be using the new printer device systematically according to a test plan such as:

  • testing physical connectivity and then the printer drivers
  • checking physical connectivity again (if the printer drivers fail) and then testing the printer drivers again.

Automated testing

Automated testing could be the same as systematic testing but it does not require human intervention. The testing is automatically carried out when a new component is added to the existing system. Examples of this would be printing logs and error reports that are automatically maintained while users are printing to the network printer. The automated testing system ensures that the printer works at the optimum capacity and reliably under every network condition.

Integration testing

Integrated testing is undertaken to ensure that the parts of a system that should work together do work together. This commonly involves testing new equipment within the existing infrastructure to ensure that they work well together with existing components under desired conditions.

Removing redundant equipment

The wide usage of IT equipment coupled with our increased awareness of environmental issues calls for responsible and streamlined strategies for removing redundant equipment. Therefore, organisations must ensure that they are aware of environmental, health, safety and security issues when disposing equipment.

Services required for removal of equipment

Many of the tasks involved in the removal of equipment can be undertaken in-house, but some tasks may require services from other organisations.

Data removal

Remove and erase all traces of any data to protect the organisation’s confidentiality.

Certification

Some companies have strict rules about removing equipment and needs certification of removal for auditing and tracking purposes.

Donation to charity or sold to employees

You company may have a policy to donate replaced equipment to a charitable organisation or sell to employees for a minimum price.

Transportation

If the equipment must be removed, who is responsible for securely transporting the equipment to designated waste disposal locations?

Hazardous material

Equipment with glass that is breakable and devices containing fluid that could leak could be hazardous in nature.

Procedures for removal of equipment

To ensure that accurate documentation is maintained and equipment is disposed of in an environmentally responsible way, specific procedures have to be established for the purpose. Here is an example:

1Identify equipment to be removed.

2Determine whether the equipment obsolete. If not, explore the possibility of recycling or using the equipment for other purposes.

3Consider the options of using the equipment as spare parts and/or redeploying it to another section of the organisation.

4Identify services required and the organisations that can provide the services, eg choosing a recycling organisation. When you get any new equipment, suppliers of the new equipment may agree to remove any redundant equipment from the organisation. If not, you will need to identify appropriate organisations to dispose, donate or sell to employees.

5Ensure that procedures are in place to de-install any complex equipment.

6Update your inventory before you remove any equipment from the organisation to ensure accurate documentation and good inventory control practice.

Summary

This reading has taken you through the process of establishing a strategy for the integration and implementation of new equipment into an existing system. We started with the importance of identifying organisational requirements in the strategic planning for new technology. Then we explored some effective strategies and tools for integration and implementation of new equipment, including the use of technology roadmaps, Gantt charts and developing a mini implementation plan. We then moved on to a discussion of testing because new equipment must be tested to verify its functionality, performance and reliability before being integrated into the existing system. We finished with the environmental considerations in the removal of redundant equipment, as well as some procedures for undertaking this.

Check your progress

Now you should try and do the Practice activities in this topic. If you’ve already tried them, have another go and see if you can improve your responses.

When you feel ready, try the ‘Check your understanding’ activity in the Preview section of this topic. This will help you decide if you’re ready for assessment.

Reading: Establish a strategy for integration and implementation of new equipment into an existing system 1

2005