MTR Corporation

Challenge

Standardize change management to improve efficiency, quality and control of development

Solution

Serena PVCS Professional

Results

• Improved quality
• Provided predictability
• Increased productivity
• Improved return on investment
• Helped maintain ISO certification

“MTR Corporation has realized that change management, and thus PVCS Professional, is important and has many benefits for us. We now have better control of our development process. PVCS Professional has dramatically improved our productivity, quality, predictability, and return on investment and helps us maintain our ISO certification.”
- MTR Manager

MTR Corporation Limited’s business is to operate Hong Kong’s mass transit railway system. Their key mission is “to develop and manage a world class railway, together with property and other related businesses, to enhance the quality of life in Hong Kong.” MTR carries more than 2.2 million passengers on its railway network daily! It currently operates a network of more than 83 kilometres of tracks with 44 stations. MTR has been confirmed by recent benchmarking studies as one of the world’s finest railways for reliability, customer service and cost efficiency - keeping Hong Kong on a fast track.

Trains are operated with automatic control and protection systems which regulate the distance between trains, determining the optimal rates of acceleration and braking as well as the coasting speeds on different sections of the track. The routing and timing of train movements are controlled by signaling computer systems according to scheduled timetables.

The sheer nature of the business makes it mandatory to have a strong safety and quality culture. Thus, the engineering department at MTR consists of more than 100 employees. With so many people, it makes managing change even more important. It is critical that all aspects of the development lifecycle be managed effectively and efficiently.

Why change management?

MTR has always had a change management procedure, but until 1999, they did not use any products to help them manage the development process. There was a procedure to follow, but it was a manual one, so different systems would have different ways of managing their software (and with more than 100 different systems, the complexity increased). In 1999, MTR ran an implementation survey throughout the engineering department. It was determined that even though the procedures were being followed, there was room to improve efficiency and quality, but in order to do that, a tool was needed to assist with standardization.

Then MTR began the tendering processes. A tender assessment team looked at products in terms of functionality and cost. Various products were reviewed, including Microsoft SourceSafe, Rational ClearCase, and Serena PVCS Professional. The comprehensive evaluation lasted three months, and once completed, MTR determined that PVCS Professional was the most cost effective and had the best functionality.

How PVCS Professional has helped MTR

Almost every one of MTR’s more than one hundred systems uses PVCS Professional for change management. PVCS Professional consists of PVCS Version Manager for version management, Serena TeamTrack for issue and change management, and Serena Builder for build management. PVCS Professional gives teams the power to organize software assets, track and communicate issues, and standardize the software build process.

MTR uses PVCS Version Manager to manage and protect the different versions of their software assets. “Because MTR has many different software systems to manage, it is important to be able to version control these, ” from an MTR Manager. “If something does go wrong, we can easily go back to the previous version. PVCS Version Manager has also allowed us to automate our common tasks, such as checking in and checking out files and promoting/progressing to the next level in our process. Also, because we outsource much of our development, having PVCS Version Manager allows us to see who has made what changes to the software.”

MTR also uses PVCS Version Manager to manage firmware used in applications such as fire detection. Different equipment needs to be managed and controlled at different stages, and manufacturers have different versions. This all needs to be managed, so changes to the firmware can be traced.

Serena TeamTrack is a critical issue management tool for MTR. Tracker captures, manages, and communicates the business and technical issues critical to any organization. MTR uses TeamTrack mainly for managing bug resolution and enhancements within their software. “For example, when we would like to enhance one of our current systems, we just submit this request into TeamTrack. The person who needs to address this issue will automatically get notified via email. This has made it very easy for us to manage our issues and know who is working on what.”

Many organizations approach configuration management without a long-term plan. When software configuration management-related problems occur, they are solved on an 'as needed' basis.

“MTR Corporation has realized that change management, and thus PVCS Professional, is important and has many benefits for us,“ according to the MTR manager. “We now have better control of our development process. PVCS Professional has dramatically improved our productivity, quality, predictability, and return on investment (ROI) and helps us maintain our ISO certification.”