Cases

Made in Houston
People at Houston have decades of experience in supplying IT projects – including a large number of projects for ICT organizations. Houston's main service has been to offer our experts as architects, projects managers and executors to boost the client’s own development organization. Here are a few examples of our doings:

Sanoma: Service for selling and searching for used cars, Oikotie.fi (2009–)
Houston's responsibility at Sanoma is development and maintenance of the used cars section of one of the highest-profile classified ads services in Finland, Oikotie.fi. The service provides search functions over all used for sale in Finland. In addition, to private users all the major car dealers post their catalogs in the service. The application is built using the very latest Java EE technologies and project is carried out in tight cooperation with the client using the practices of lean software development. The Houston Inc. team is using Kanban techniques on a daily basis.

System integration, web portal and other projects at a large operator (2008–)
The cooperation with one of Finland's largest operators started in 2008, when Houston Inc. was invited to develop system integration solutions stemming from organizational arrangements. The development was made efficiently with agile methodologies. Later on, Houston Inc. has had more challenging and critical tasks, which have been delivered with the same brisk attitude. Now Houston's hand print can be seen in several of the operator's services.

A mobility solution for a large network company (2008–)
A certified .NET Technology Specialist from Houston participated in development, configuration and roll-out phase of a mobility solution operating in .NET and S60 environments. The solution is used to coordinate mobile network maintenance and upgrade operations. The solution is used by several large mobile phone operators around the globe. Much of the work was done on-site in different countries, including customer training and consulting.

Transaction log system for web banks (2009)
Houston Inc. had a successful delivery for an IT supplier for banks. Houston's job at the supplier was to delivered an audit-trail transaction log function for the web banking system of the customer's corporate clients. The transaction log supports the bank's employees' work in different customer service situations when checking the exceptional cases the customer has experienced while using the web bank. The log system was also implemented to the employee interface. The transaction log was implemented during a 12 week period in six sprints. The functionality was delivered to the end customers in May.

Itella: A global invoice digitizing solution (2008 – 2009)
Houston participated in the development of a global invoice digitizing solution at Itella. The project aim was to create more automated invoice digitizing system allowing the customer to handle much larger volumes of invoices in several sites around Europe. For this project Houston Inc. consultants aided the customer in software architecture design, implementing agile methodologies and in implementing a part of the solution.

Logica: Internet reporting system for the State Treasury (2008 – 2009)
One of Houston Inc's consultants took part in developing the internet reporting system Netra for the State Treasury. For example, financial, HR and performance reports are entered to the system, which calculates different statistics from the data. The Houston consultant helped develop the data entering solution for performance information. The biggest change from the previous version of Netra was switching to multi-record handling.

OP-Pohjola: Scrum-development of OP's web bank (2006 – 2009)
Houston Inc. has once again been a part of a successful credit trade project, which was carried out using Scrum methods for a large Finnish web bank. Now you can apply for a mortgage online and get the decision at once. Houston Inc. was strongly involved in he Scrum team, which had a ScrumMaster, two Product Owners, five developers and one to three testers. 117 Product Backlog items were defined in the project. The items were executed in 13 three week sprints. The project had automated testing and deployment, Continuous Integration and static analysis of the code. Houston also received a Master's Thesis about the application of Scrum in the project.

OP-Pohjola: Application and decision processing system (2005–2007)
Houston carried out a sales renewal project for a remarkable company in the field of finance. In the project, processes were developed to allow sales of security-free loans and for secure loans ranging from the smallest personal loans to housing loans. Houston participated by leading, defining, executing and monitoring results. The project was carried out in phases with agile development. Each phase of the application is a multichannel J2EE design that works inside and outside an office’s network and as a telephone service.

Definition of support process of application development (2005 – 2006)
This project focused on creating symmetry in the application and support processes of java development for a Finnish bank’s ICT organization. The version management, configuration management, transfer procedures of environments and packaging were gathered, analyzed and clarified. The project produced a comprehensive guideline for the support and usage of equipment involving application development and for the support of conducting the application development process itself. Houston led the project and supplied several experts who filled key roles.

Integration project of insurance companies’ information systems (2005 – 2006)
In one of Finland’s biggest ever ICT projects the information systems of two large life insurance companies were combined together. Houston supplied an expert to do a SWOT analysis on different package solutions. Analysis started with determining the functionality of the previous insurance system that had also been developed by Houston.

Internet-based web invoice system for private customers (2005)
We participated in executing an Internet-based web invoice system with J2EE techniques for a large functionary in the field of finance. The system makes it possible to receive, watch and pay web invoices of Finvoice format in www-browser environment. Professionals of Houston were strongly involved in technical planning and implementation.

Finance and Private Banking System (2004 – 2005)
This finance and private banking system - made for a large consolidated company in the field of finance but adaptable for other companies - was actualized by J2EE technology. Houston’s main responsibility was to implement the project and then carry it out. The buying and selling system for the customer’s stock funds and the browsing system for financial products were implemented in the project.