After 854 sites, 8412 PCs and monitors, and countless late nights, Kordia finally completed the ambitious 1BP desktop project for IBM and Westpac on 11 December 2008.

Kordia deployed an army of experienced technicians round the clock to meet the tight timelines and technical hurdles.

The large-scale national project involved the installation of new IBM PCs and monitors and their configuration with Westpac’s software for three distinct divisions within the bank: retail, corporate and institutional banking.

When technical issues were encountered, Kordia’s experienced crew worked together with the IBM and Westpac technical teams. The group of experts came up with a plan to replace Westpac’s domain controllers (used for retail) to ensure that milestones set for retail deployment could be met.

When the timeline was reduced from 16 weeks to eight weeks, a second supplier was recommended to assist with delivery. But Kordia’s great track record convinced IBM and Westpac that Kordia was capable of delivering the entire project alone. And it was!

In the following eight weeks, Corporate and Government Service Delivery Manager, Karl Bayliss and the Kordia team deployed up to 100 technicians across 30 Westpac sites and rolled out an impressive 350 PCs every night.

The teams decommissioned the original PCs, installed new machines, downloaded specific applications, conducted functional testing and finally packed away the old PCs for collection the following morning.

All these tasks were conducted outside official banking hours, with some teams working into the early hours of the morning to ensure that branches were ready to serve customers the next day.

Simultaneously, Kordia had to complete between six and eight in-store installations a day at small banking locations in newsagents and supermarkets in some of the most remote areas of Australia.

To ensure smooth delivery, Kordia provided two command centre teams, co-ordinating both day and night-time installations. They kept the technical staff and IBM project managers updated with progress and also assisted in the resolution of technical issues.

In addition, Kordia project manager, Glenn Stevens, was placed in Westpac's Sydney office to schedule Kordia activity and to work closely with the IBM and Westpac project teams.

Meanwhile, a second support team was based in Kordia's North Ryde office to deal with back room activities required to deliver a major project - a delicate balancing act that paid off when the project was delivered on time and met the customers’ expectations.