A Network Infrastructure to Contain Costs and Enable Fast Response: The TRW Process

A growing problem for many organization sis spiraling telecommunications costs coupled with the need to respond faster to changing market conditions. To handle such a situation, TRW’s Space and Defense Sector management authorized a new integrated voice and data digital network for 20,000 employees located in 65 buildings. TRW’s top management saw the network as an opportunity to integrate the company’s islands of information, which were isolated within separate data networks. The project took four and one half years from design to implementation at a cost of $45 million. The management techniques employed resulted in critical milestones being met not only on time but also 10 percent under the original budget. The new network provided a single access mechanism that resulted in some unanticipated advantages that went beyond the original goals of fast response and cost containment. The network successfully addressed such problems as developing effective data networking policies, network sizing in a multi-vendor environment, sharing excess information system capacity, centralizing the network while keeping the information systems decentralized, and overcoming the “not controlled here” syndrom. TRW’s experiences should prove valuable for large information-intensive companies attempting to meet similar challenges.