"Unisys and Stradcom define a partnership as being an organization of persons sharing a common interest and purpose that can work cooperatively together in a team environment for mutual benefit in addition to providing quality products for beneficiaries of the partnership," said Unisys Public Sector Director Tony Tissington.
The partnership started in March 1999, when the modernization program of the LTO received a boost as Stradcom Corp. and Unisys Philippines signed a system integration contract for the LTO information technology project.
"The Stradcom Corp. recognized that Unisys Philippines had a solid background in systems integration and implementation having proven itself in numerous similar projects around the world," said Stradcom chairman Cezar T. Quiambao.
As soon as the partnership was formed, both Stradcom and Unisys immediately assigned highly qualified and fully equipped IT professionals to the project team. In close coordination with LTO officials, studies and discussions on the core business processes of the agency quickly led to the successful adoption of the Business Process Specification (BPS) in October of 1999. The BPS was the blueprint of the requirements and changes that put LTO well on the road to computerization and improved business processes.
The first systems were rolled out for initial testing in certain NCR offices from July 2000 onwards. By the end of the year 2000, the majority of the district offices in the NCR were processing selected transactions using the new system in parallel with their existing manual processes.
In May 2001, all district offices in NCR had adopted the new system for most of their transactions. The public reaction to the immediate improvement in the service levels in these offices was swift and sweet and the system is now being hailed as a showcase of how information, communications and technology (ICT) can help raise the level of service excellence in government offices.
The LTO-IT project was cited by President Arroyo in her recent State of the Nation address.
The partnership is currently deep in planning activities to implement the system into full operation throughout the country. Full implementation is planned for completion by the end of 2001. "Stradcom’s pioneering spirit has made all this possible," Tissington stressed. "We look forward to working with them on future projects."
"We laud Unisys’ expertise and the highly successful development and implementation of the new LTO-IT system," Quiambao said.