Airwave delivers critical communications solutions to organisations involved in providing vital services to the public. Their customers include the police, fire and ambulance services as well as more than 150 other organisations with a public services role.
In 2009 Airwave commissioned Softwire to develop an asset management system targeted at UK Emergency Services. In addition to normal asset tracking and management functions, the system also interfaces with TETRA radios and networks to provide seamless management and commissioning of TETRA radio assets. It is a large and complex system, representing several man years of effort.
The system is based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET MVC platform and targets both Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server as a database backend. Owing to the sensitive nature of the assets which are tracked in the system, data security is a primary concern and the application has a sophisticated access control and auditing system.
The system is architected in a modular and extensible manner, allowing Airwave to offer licenses for individual modules or the entire product suite. A custom workflow management system handles the movement of assets through statuses and between locations.
Softwire used an Agile development methodology (Scrum) with a cross-functional team of developers, testers and analysts. The development phase consisted of a series of cycles (“sprints”), each three weeks long. At the end of each sprint Softwire made a fully tested release to Airwave, which was reviewed and used to determine the development priorities for the next sprint.
This process brought a number of significant benefits:
- Regular reviews ensured that Airwave could react to changing customer priorities and emergent requirements.
- Softwire’s use of a cross-functional team of developers, testers and analysts meant that each release was fully planned and tested, ensuring that quality was baked into the system from the start.
- Regular releases and a commitment to ensuring that functionality in each release was in a fully complete and shippable condition allowed Airwave to test the system throughout the project, and to have a good overview of the project progress.
- All stakeholders were involved throughout the development process and could contribute to functionality decisions whilst minimising scope and schedule creep.
- The commitment of Airwave and customer stakeholders to the Agile process meant that Softwire were able to offer a fixed price yet still cope with emerging requirements without a heavy change management overhead – truly the best of both worlds for the customer!
The end result was a robust, scalable system which met the needs of its users. Despite its size and complexity, it was delivered on time, on budget and to a very high level of quality.
Customer testimonial
“The experience of working with Softwire was entirely positive. Staff responded professionally and with intelligence to all our requirements, focusing on what we wanted, delivering on time and to a very high standard. Added to which they are fun to work with. We will definitely consider working with them again and would recommend them to others.”
Jayne Bartholomew, Product Manager, Airwave Solutions
Spring Digital