Eircom unveils service management app

Ex-Irish state owned telco, Eircom, has implemented a £320,000 service management application for all of its service operations.

Called SORTS (Service Order Reporting and Tracking System), the programme tracks all of Eircom's service orders, for example the installation of business ISDN lines, from beginning to completion. The application was developed from scratch by PKS/Orygen using a Component Based Development system (CBD).

Declan Hughes, operations systems manager for Eircom, said that the SORTS programme had added functionality to Eircom's service whilst eliminating Y2K problems.

The application was developed externally using Sterling Software's COOL:Gen application development programme. PKS/Orygen is in discussion with Eircom to expand the component architecture to other Eircom processes.

Hughes added: "The real question is 'can we re-use these components?' If this is the way to go, then this completely changes the way we would develop our systems."

Hughes said the project had given him a favourable experience of outsourcing development, despite the fact that Eircom has its own team of over 200 developers. "Based on this experience we would consider outsourcing again every time," he added.