When Sean Curran accepted his new position at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, his first goal was to upgrade all software to supported versions. An obvious place to start was with the three-decades-old TOTAL® database management system (a DBMS that had served the BLS during seven White House administrations and countless shifts in employment trends).

Cincom’s consultant developed a plan that enabled the BLS to minimize the amount of changes in its operating environment. He also provided the training, mentoring and consulting that enabled the BLS to do the bulk of the work themselves.

BLS programmers proceeded with their conversions in a supported environment without worrying about the database. “We had this major change in the way we do business, and we changed thousands of programs,” Curran noted. “Just compiling it took days. But we didn’t have to rewrite it. It was worth five person-years of effort to us.”