Bal Brrang, Software Team Leader at Avery Weigh-Tronix, outlines how AllChange has significantly improved its change management process.

Avery Weigh-Tronix is one of the world's largest manufacturers of weighing equipment and solutions.

With companies in Europe, USA, Africa and Asia, the group employs more than 4,200 people worldwide. It works closely with its customers on a local and international basis, applying the latest weighing technology to create innovative, market-focused solutions. This has created probably the most comprehensive weighing portfolio, supported by ancillary equipment, systems software and food processing machinery.

Prior to AllChange, the Software Development Department had been using a number of different tools for source code control and configuration management. There was a desire to standardize on a common configuration management system which would meet the requirements of all the software development teams.

The obvious way forward seemed to be to roll out the configuration management tool to all groups. However, we wanted to use this opportunity to look at alternative tools which may be better suited to our needs.

A team of 4 people were assigned to evaluate the tools from 4 different companies. The following criteria and weightings were used for the evaluation:

Criteria ----------Weighting (%)

Functional Coverage --------20
Data Migration ---------------15
Ease of use -------------------15
Customer References -------15
Support ------------------------15
Tool Integration ---------------5
Database technology ---------5
Supplier size and stability ---5
Compatible products ------- 2.5
Ease of Adoption ------------2.5

Intasoft scored highly in three categories which were of particular imortance to us, namely; functional coverage, support, and customer references.

We have been using AllChange for 15 months now. The roll out program was carried out over 9 months, which gave us time to complete current projects before they could be ported to the new tool.

At present, AllChange is used by software developers and managers and support and marketing staff, in the Software Development, Technical Support, and Marketing departments.

AllChange is used specifically for source code control and change management, release management and management reporting.

We are very happy with the performance of AllChange; it has improved our change management process significantly. There is now complete visibility of the changes in progress, the current status and when they are scheduled to be released. Before we had AllChange in place there were many instances when people would say 'I'm sure we had a fault like this before' or, 'I am sure I spoke to you about this change'.

AllChange has also made the communication between Group Support and the Development Team much more efficient.

AllChange is a very flexible system and we have customised it in areas of defect reporting, to fit more closely with our current system. Initially, the customisation was carried out with the help of consultancy from Intasoft, which we found to be very good. That then enabled us to do more customisation ourselves.

There has been a positive response to AllChange. It is certainly very flexible and intuitive and I can honestly say that the technical support service is the best that I have come across.

We have used Intasoft's training service to train the team leaders and the administrators of the tool. We also used about 4 weeks of consultancy. The training courses were well structured and relevant. In particular, the administrators' course was very good and provided the knowledge to enable us to cutomise the tool to suit our needs.

Intasoft provides a user group for AllChange, offering a range of benefits including a yearly conference. I think the AllChange user group is a good way of sharing experiences with other users, and of getting a preview of new product features. It also gives customers the chance to contribute to Intasoft's development strategy, as it always listens to its customers and makes every effort to incorporate their wishes wherever possible.

I think of Intasoft as a company that listens to its customers and provides the very best customer service. The product quality is very good but it is not complacent and is always striving for improvement.

In the future I see AllChange being rolled out to other parts of the business including Marketing, Project Management, Hardware Development and to other development centres in India and the US.

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