Taking over a black box system to support its operations, maintenance, and ongoing changes

The maintenance company that our client had worked with for many years decided to withdraw from maintaining the system because of a change in its business policy. To keep the business running, the client needed a new support structure.

However, the system, which the client had used for many years, lacked sufficient specifications and operating procedures. Past modifications had also made its processing complex, and the information available from the maintenance company alone was not enough to fully understand what operations and maintenance required.

SYSLABO took over the operations and maintenance of this system. We worked out how the system works from its screens and actual behavior, and moved forward with an investigation and a review of operations so that future development and updates could also be handled.

• Daily work and system changes continue, even when the maintenance company changes

  The client faced not only the challenge of finding a new maintenance provider, but also the challenge of having to respond to changes without knowing what was inside the system.

  Fixes required by law revisions, requests for new development from business departments, responses to defects, and the application of patches: none of these could be put off because the maintenance company had withdrawn.

  At the same time, it was hard to judge how a change would affect other functions or connected systems. Although people knew the everyday operations, the internal processing and the reasons for past modifications were not fully understood within the company.

• Deciding what to investigate first, based on the impact on the business

  We began the investigation by confirming how the client currently uses the system and what problems they face.

  What matters is not investigating every function to the same depth. To keep maintenance going, some areas should be understood first, such as processing that would greatly affect the business if it stopped, changes with approaching deadlines, and functions that repeatedly receive inquiries.

  We worked on understanding the client's business and on the technical investigation in parallel, starting with the information needed for daily work.

• Tracing hidden processing from how the screens behave

  When specifications are insufficient, the actual screens and behavior become the starting point of the investigation. What information is entered, which operations are performed, and what changes as a result? We worked out the functions while comparing them with the client's everyday work.

  However, the screens alone do not reveal the whole system. Data registered on a screen may later be updated by another process or passed to an external system.

  So we used the programs, data, settings, and logs we could examine as clues to understand how the screens relate to the processing behind them. Parts that cannot be seen during daytime operations, such as nightly and monthly processing and external integrations, were also treated as part of operations and maintenance.

• Complex specifications have reasons built up over time

  When years of additional development leave processing tangled, even a small fix requires checking a wide area. In a system that has become tangled like this, it is important to understand not only how it works now but also why it came to work that way.

  Processing that appears duplicated at first glance may exist for reasons such as agreements with business partners or avoiding past defects. Simply making the complex parts simpler could mean losing conditions the business still needs.

  SYSLABO worked with the client to confirm how work is done today and how things came to be, and identified which specifications to keep and which parts to review. We did not judge only from what the documents showed, and also paid attention to parts covered by manual work on site and to exceptional handling.

• Using the investigation for the next changes and operational improvements

  Even after the takeover, necessary work continues, including responding to law revisions, new development, fixing defects, and applying patches.

  If each task ends with only the immediate response, the same parts have to be investigated again at the next change. The relationships between processes and the points to watch, found through the investigation, need to be recorded in a form that can be used for future checks and decisions.

  In addition, when making changes or updates, we check not only the parts being changed but also the data and connected systems used further along. When applying patches, we also confirm the impact on the business before deciding when to apply them and how to test them.

  While handling the operations and maintenance of the existing system, SYSLABO deepened its understanding from both the system and business sides and moved forward with a review to optimize future operations. We support the client so that they can decide on the changes they need and keep using the system.