Over the last 15 years Rapid Response has taken pride in providing customers with highly customized solutions. Thus, when it came time to convert, both SGS & Rapid had a BIG challenge in understanding all the variations in the “legacy” solutions.One of the most challenging issues any central station faces is conversion to a new monitoring system. During 2009 Rapid’s IT team led by Peter Kirk and operations team led by Lynn Sarni delved into the existing system to ferret out all the variations to the software. The “list” was a foundation to assure all software features were included in stages™. But over time, we all understood a second dimension – the “list” was also going to drive many aspects of the data conversion. In fact, the variations in data proved to be even more difficult to address because there was never one modification for everyone.
Most companies try to manually massage data after conversion or live with the errors that are created by moving from one system to another. For Rapid neither living with errors nor manual corrections were reasonable options. With hundreds of thousands of accounts, the best alternative was to raise the level of data conversion to eliminate the possibility of error.
It was a major undertaking to convert and it is still continuing. Contacting dealers, verifying signals, training, editing and many, many conversions are taking months to achieve. The first batch of dealer conversions led to improved processes for the next batch. While not complete, the process is now refined and data accuracy is raised beyond any tolerances SGS has ever seen. Checking, and rechecking – converting and reconverting. The old adage of “measure twice and cut once” is certainly one key to success.
