All Nippon Airlines aims to become Asia’s No. 1 airline for quality and value with IBM BladeCenter

All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as "ANA") declared its intention of becoming Asia’s number one airline for quality, customer satisfaction and value creation in line with the ANA Group Medium-Term Business Strategy FY 2006 - 2009. The medium-term business plan aims to expand business, reinforce the corporate structure and establish the world’s highest standard safety management system. The plan also stresses the importance of becoming the top airline company in Asia for customer satisfaction by paying close attention to customer opinions. Improving the level of customer satisfaction hinges on ANADAS - a system that manages customer and service information for services and reception. To assure high service quality that values customers’ opinions, ANA adopted IBM BladeCenter as the basis of an IBM total solution to the restructuring that the company deemed necessary for its aging ANADAS.

System supporting ANA’s aim to become No.1 in Asia

In Japan’s domestic airline market, the business climate is subject to rapid changes caused by severe price competition. This competition is due to the entry of new airline companies, competition over the acquisition of new routes accompanying the opening of new airports, the risk of income fluctuation due to high fuel prices and other factors. The expansion of Haneda Airport in fiscal year 2009 will add routes and open international routes, prompting a major restructuring of the industry. In this fast-changing business climate, ANA set about a full-scale business reorganization aimed at an era of massive competition. The ANA Group is conducting a range of reforms that includes expanding its air passenger services on domestic and international routes, as well as freight and postal services, reducing structural cost and securing a business organization that is resistant to fluctuation risk with the implementation of the fleet strategy.

Raising the level of service and reception operations by restructuring ANADAS

ANADAS is an extremely important system used daily by approximately 15,000 staff within the ANA Group. Staff members access ANADAS at airports, aboard planes, from their homes, hotels at international air route destinations, overseas airports and other locations. Applications continue to grow year-by-year, and currently the range of utilization is expanding to partly support airport operations and sales. The importance of ANADAS is sure to increase in the future, with the aim of further expanding services and enhancing customer satisfaction. However, the system, which started up in 2001, is already suffering from age and deterioration: response is down, running costs are high and the system is reaching its capacity limit. ANA established ANA Information Systems Planning Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as "ASP") to handle system construction and operations for the ANA Group. The new company began to investigate solutions for restructuring ANADAS in the fall of 2005.

Says Mr. Miyazawa of the ANA IT Promotion Office System Planning Group, "We had problems of system deterioration and software support reaching the end of its term, so we finally decided to restructure ANADAS. There was no big shortage from the viewpoint of functionality. Themes for the new system included scalability to handle an increased number of users and data capacity, availability to deliver 24-hour stable operation, as well as reduction in the cost of system introduction and operation."

No.1 Team project leader of the ASP Business Systems Department, Mr. Sugihara, has this to say regarding system requirements for the new ANADAS: "This is a system that is used everyday in reception, so a high availability infrastructure was a major prerequisite. Also, to provide integrated management of reports in multiple formats, the system had to allow easy addition and changes of formats, and also handle atypical data."

After compiling these requirements, an RFP was issued in April 2006 and a proposal submitted by each company. IBM proposed employing IBM DB2 9 equipped with XML-DB function to facilitate handling of atypical formats, with the system configuration based on IBM BladeCenter, which invests thoroughly redundant technology from the design stage and has excellent scalability.

ANA’s corporate culture continues to take on new technological challenges

Mr. Hatori, head of the ANA IT Promotion Office’s System Planning Group, has this to say about reasons for adopting IBM’s proposal. "IBM proposed an expansion plan for existing groupware, as well as a plan for utilizing new XML-DB technology. There were many discussions within the company, and it took us about 4 months to reach a final conclusion to the study. In the end, we selected a plan based on IBM DB2 9 and IBM BladeCenter. The main reason for this choice was that it fully implemented advanced technology. At ANA, we continue to believe wholeheartedly in taking on new challenges, so this plan was met with considerable approval."

Mr. Suzuki, a systems engineer in charge of application development through system operation in the No.1 Team of the ASP Business Systems Department, has this to say. "The system this time is built on a DB2 9 back-end with XML-DB function, and uses the IBM WebSphere® Application Server for the front-end that supports it. A clustering configuration is used for DB2 to promote high availability, and WebSphere Application Server employs Network Dispatcher to distribute load. With this system configuration, we judged BladeCenter to be optimal for achieving lower infrastructure cost and increased operating efficiency."

BladeCenter raises expectations with scalability and availability as well as cost-cutting effectiveness

ANADAS changed over to the new infrastructure in March 2007, and applications went into full operation from April. We asked Miyazawa about his expectations and estimation of the newly introduced BladeCenter.

Says Miyazawa, "BladeCenter allows us to easily expand the system to meet demands for increased access frequency and data volume simply by adding blades. This promotes a sense of security on the operating side. Availability is also highly rated, with power and network duplication within the chassis."

"With the current project, despite our carrying out large-scale system reconstruction, we were able to keep the cost of introduction extremely low. We also expect to cut expenditure now that the system is up and running. For the future, we are investigating the expansion of ANADAS into baggage and maintenance operations, and extending its range of application to link up with various systems of companies within the ANA group. We expect it to evolve into an increasingly important, large-scale system. And as we project major things for ANADAS in the future, I think BladeCenter has the exceptional scalability and reliability to match our needs.”