Fort Point Partners and Toyota Launch Web Service Application
20 January 1999
Fort Point Partners and Toyota Motor Sales Launch Strategic Web Service Application
Extranet Improves Support and Reduces Overhead for Industry-LeadingCustomer Service Training Program
Toyota Motor Sales USA and Fort Point Partners Wednesday announced the launch of a strategic Web service application for the Toyota Technical Education Network (T-TEN).
Toyota's legendary quality makes its mark on the Web with groundbreaking integration of mainframe and Web technologies to radically improve service levels to its training partners.
Fort Point Partners and Toyota developed the Web service application, called T-TEN Online, to provide a full-service interface for the students and administrators that supply the Toyota service network.
In addition to eliminating 80% of the documents previously used to administer the program and thus freeing hundreds of hours of T-TEN staff time from administrative duties, the T-TEN application improves service by reducing the time to fulfill support requests from weeks or months down to same-day.
The quantum improvement in service quality will reduce manpower and communications costs immediately. Additionally, Toyota management is armed with vastly improved reporting capabilities, allowing Toyota to identify opportunities for improvement and track student success.
Toyota Motor Sales established T-TEN in 1986 and has trained more than 2,000 students at 56 Community Colleges, Universities and Vocational Institutes nationwide. T-TEN is a industry leading partnership between Toyota and post-secondary vocational programs that provide students a unique opportunity to learn Toyota and Lexus specific aspects of vehicle repair and service/parts management while pursuing their college education.
Toyota provides state-of-the-art training materials, tools, vehicles and curriculum to make T-TEN the premier automotive industry education partnership in the United States. Graduates go on to careers in Toyota and Lexus dealerships. Because of this highly successful program, Toyota is able to offer the highest quality customer service in the industry.
"T-TEN Online has received standing ovations from both internal groups and from the educators and students who are participating in the program," said Rick Lester, T-TEN Manager. "This project is really helping us extend our lead in providing the best customer service in the industry. Fort Point was a critical partner because they understood our goals and really harnessed new and legacy technology to deliver online service results."
Building T-TEN Online
To design T-TEN's new extranet, Toyota established a cross-functional team composed of representatives from the T-TEN business unit, corporate Information Systems and engaged Fort Point Partners, a leading provider of consulting and system integration services.
Fort Point and the T-TEN business unit then mapped out an initial design document for T-TEN Online. Fort Point took this and applied the Fortified Process, a proven methodology for online business application development and implementation, to build and deploy the extranet solution.
To build T-TEN Online, Fort Point developed a collaboration and information publishing application that provides real-time connectivity to the complex Toyota legacy systems, including mainframe computers. Fort Point used Microsoft's COM/TI technology to directly access Toyota's CICS mainframe applications via Active Server Pages within a high-performance and fully secure Web application server environment.
Reporting capabilities were integrated to allow scheduled reports to all levels of users and ad-hoc reporting to T-TEN administrative staff.
"Our goal was to target technology at the problem of quality and productivity," said James Roche, Fort Point CEO. "Working with Toyota's corporate IS group, we provided real-time connectivity to the sophisticated Toyota mainframe systems because only through aggressive technology could we meet aggressive cost and service quality improvement goals.
"We were able to successfully preserve Toyota's existing enterprise data resources while developing functionality that the Toyota training community loves."
About Fort Point Partners
Fort Point Partners, founded in 1996, is the leading expert in strategy and technology for online merchandising. Fort Point has unparalleled experience in creating profitable online selling strategies and building large-scale Internet commerce systems.
The company partners with leading solutions providers such as Sun (SUNW), Oracle (ORCL), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Informix (IFMX), CyberSource and Netscape (NSCP). Fort Point Partners uses the Fortified Process, a set of rigorous guidelines for Web-based commerce deployments, to achieve the highest levels of manageability, integration with existing systems, flexibility and rapid development. Fort Point is on the Web at www.ftpoint.com.