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ICT-Outsourcing at the Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH.
At a glance
The Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH is a Cologne-based expert organization that conducts technicalscientific research. It supplies knowledge, advanced methods and expert information for the purpose of analyzing and improving the safety of technical installations, as well as enabling better protection for humans and the environment against the dangers and risks of such installations. Their work focuses on nuclear safety, and in that area, GRS is Germany‘s most important specialist. A staff of 400 in all (300 of whom are scientists) work at four locations in Germany (Berlin, Braunschweig, Garching and Cologne). It counts as its subsidiaries the Institut für Sicherheitstechnologie (ISTec) GmbH and – in collaboration with its French partner, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) – the Paris-based RISKAUDIT IRSN/GRS International (EWIV), which also has technical bureaus in Moscow and Kiev.
- Everything from a single source:In its capacity as an ICT service provider for scientific institutions, T-Systems Solutions for Research GmbH understands the particular requirements of a company like GRS. It can also supply IT and telecommunications technology from a single source. This gives GRS a contact for the entire range of services.
- A modern and high-performance IT landscape: GRS can rely on having T-Systems Solutions for Research GmbH as an IT partner that supplies services tailored to its needs.
- Calculable costs: The IT service agreement ensures that GRS can participate in technological advances and pay stable prices for IT services with an agreed ceiling.
- High degree of user satisfaction: A cost-effective IT service agreement is only worthwhile if users are satisfied with the services offered. That is why the IT management at GRS has conducted regular surveys among the users of the IT services since the service agreement went into effect – surveys that have consistently earned the service provider good grades to date.
Challenge
Around the mid-1990s, experts at GRS began to give increasing thought to how IT service could be provided more effectively and made more transparent. Naturally, after 1998, this issue was reinforced by the Federal Republic‘s shift in nuclear energy policy – especially because cost considerations started to play an ever more significant role. During an extended orientation phase, various models for outsourcing IT services were examined. Ultimately, GRS decided in favor of a full-service outsourcing model patterned after that of the German Aerospace Center (GAR), which had already chosen this direction in 1999. In December 2001, the institution entered into a 6-year agreement to purchase goods and services in the area of information technology and communication technology. T-Systems Solutions for Research GmbH won the Europe-wide bidding process, and in the spring of 2007 a new agreement was signed, once again with a term of 6 years and starting on January 1, 2008.
Solution
Solutions for Research GmbH (SfR), a T-Systems subsidiary, has been GRS‘ service partner since 2002. GRS‘ outsourcing of its IT unit included the transfer of 32 of its employees to SfR. In addition to their high level of professionalism and expertise, they brought knowledge and skills to the new company that were sought after not only in GRS‘ field of research but also in that of DLR and other customers. This made the outsourcing project a success from the very start, a fact that was and still is confirmed repeatedly in regular customer satisfaction surveys.
The range of services encompasses several service packages involving everything from monitoring and upgrades of the infrastructure, networks, telecommunications facilities and highperformance computers to workstation systems and management IT, all the way to IT security. Proactive consultancy and support service for users is as important to GRS as the expected provision of „normal“ operating services (installation and administration, changes). Accordingly, the service agreement was framed in such a way that services would be rendered in two service categories – basic and on-demand. Basic services cover installation and administration work critical to operations and change services, while on-demand services usually include project-type work such as developing and launching new services, major software rollouts, etc.
The same range of services is offered at the foreign locations of the subsidiary RISKAUDIT – the communications networks are closely linked with one another via high-performance connections, so that the customer‘s business travelers will find the same working conditions at all locations. T-Systems Solutions for Research employs a local workforce at several of these locations and invites employees regularly for consultations and basic and advanced training courses within SfR, thereby achieving and maintaining a high level of service in those locations as well.
Customer benefits
„Since 2002, GRS has had very good experiences in outsourcing information and communications technology to IT service partner T-Systems Solutions for Research GmbH. This allows GRS to concentrate on its core responsibilities and still have the necessary resources for research operations at its disposal. Transferring tasks to a service provider has proven to be a very smart business move for us.“ (Hans Steinhauer, managing director of GRS in charge of commercial and legal affairs).
