Our customer projects and case studies

BLS AG

The BLS AG, as an operator of its own rail network in western Switzerland, is one of the leading transportation companies in the country. The principal owner of the company is the canton of Bern, followed by the Swiss Confederation. The BLS AG employs over 3000 employees and has a revenue of 1.19 billion Swiss francs.

Full-Stack Java EE platform for mission-critical application

In 2009, the company’s IT department began modernizing its IT applications and underlying platforms. In 2011, Simon Martinelli joined the team with the task of designing and implementing a modern Full-Stack Java Enterprise platform in collaboration with the internal IT architects.

Simon Martinelli’s experience in the transportation sector, as well as his teaching at the Technical University of Bern, were of great value in this project. The Java EE platform was completed within three months and still forms the backbone of all mission-critical in-house developments.

“It is very rare to see an environment with such a high level of quality.”

Introducing the Profumo IT project methodology and QA

In 2010, the BLS AG established its own IT coordination department to coordinate and standardize the implementation of its own IT projects. A uniform project methodology with a quality assurance system was needed to support their work. Simon Martinelli was commissioned to develop this methodology.

His knowledge of business activities and his outstanding social skills were critical in this work, as a large number of stakeholders had to be involved.

The definition of the Profumo IT project methodology was completed within a few months, so that the necessary training and implementation were able to begin in the spring of 2011. The quality assurance system was introduced in August 2011.

Transgourmet Holding AG

The Bern-based Transgourmet Holding AG, founded in 2008, is one of the largest wholesale companies in the region, with around 27,000 employees and a turnover of 8.1 billion Swiss francs.

Consolidation of Multi-Channel ERP Systems

With the merger of the departments for wholesale and cash and carry, a consolidation of the ERP systems was necessary. It was decided to use the former cash and carry department’s ERP system as the basis for the new ERP system. Simon Martinelli was commissioned as the technical project manager and leading software architect for this task.

The agile project was completely Scrum-compliant. This ensured that time and inconsistencies were kept to a minimum and end users were involved in the project from the outset.

The existing Java EE ERP system, which was based on Eclipse RCP and ran on a JBoss application server, was extended with an integration platform using Wildfly AS, Apache Camel, and Smooks. This allowed for easy implementation of the interfaces between the company, its customers, suppliers, and external systems.

The project started in November 2014 and the new systems were successfully launched in the spring of 2017. Highlights of the project included the fully integrated order entry system and the React and REST-based online shop. Transactions of around 300 million Swiss francs are processed annually through these applications. Mobile applications for customers and logistics drivers were also developed in Java for Android.

Development of the New Cash Register Application

A new cash register application was introduced to reduce maintenance costs and increase business agility. This development included all the functions for Transgourmet payment processing. Around one billion Swiss francs worth of transactions are processed annually through this system.

Simon Martinelli was responsible for project analysis and design, including the definition of the software architecture and selection of technical components and frameworks, as well as the implementation itself.

The old system, based on COBOL and Unix, was replaced by a modern Eclipse RCP and Java EE-based application running on a JBoss application server. In addition, the mobile applications of the Windows Mobile devices, which are based on .NET and used, among other things, for warehouse management, were extended to meet the new requirements of the company.