Fujitsu

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Polar Challenge

Fujitsu was truly committed to the entire project. As evidenced by the Polar Challenge, Fujitsu’s employees work as a team and have a keen focus on improvement. Fujitsu continually looks to improve processes and ways of working, re-evaluating to discover how best we can help your business.

The Challenge

In March 2004, Fujitsu agreed to be the main sponsor of the 2004 Polar Challenge. This challenge is severe – teams of three people racing on skis to the magnetic North Pole in treacherous conditions and with each person pulling a 70kg sled behind them over the icy terrain, for a minimum of 12 hours a day. This story was filmed by the BBC as part of their “The Challenge” series.

Aside from championing the challenge, Fujitsu also sponsored Team Fujitsu. This three man team had their third member chosen for them by the BBC. Paul “Seamus” Hogan, recent father and operations manager by day, had only 5 weeks to train with the team before he took part.

The team needed to be able to communicate daily to the base camp in Resolute Bay, Canada, for both safety and survival. Any team that did not communicate daily, transmitting its location, would automatically put into effect ‘stage one’ of the rescue plan. However, as Chris McLeod, team leader for Team Fujitsu, said ‘There’s no room for dead weight. If something doesn’t work first time, every time, it will get ditched. We cannot afford to carry equipment that does not work’.

In addition, the BBC film crew provided another challenge. They wanted to communicate with staff back in London via email (although this facility was not used) and the Fujitsu support team wanted to update the web site, uk.fujitsu.com/polarchallenge, with dailyupdates from the ice.

In supporting this challenge, Fujitsu faced a number of key constraints, including extreme temperatures, exhausted racers, making ease of use and simple interaction crucial, very short timescales to design and develop the solution and a time critical operating environment.

The Solution

The Fujitsu Technical Architect, Tony Gale, listened to the users’ needs and concerns before building the solution and kept these as the focusfor his recommendations.

‘We didn’t have GPRS or 3G coverage in the remote areas the challengers were going to be in, so needed to look at how existing technology and satellite communication, working on the existing Iridium satellite network, could be integrated with newer technologies to give the teams what they needed’ he said. Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 610 PDAs were connected to the satellite phone, supplied by Stargate Communications, which was used for data and voice calls. The Loox 610 was chosen for its light weight and longer battery life, both critical factors when considering the extreme temperatures (-40˚C outside, hot and humid inside the tents) and the physically challenging trek that lay ahead.

Fujitsu used Microsoft’s 2003 Mobile Operating System as the platform on which they designed a series of unique forms to be the interface for thedaily scheduled calls.

OpenHand software allowed access to critical data via Microsoft Exchange and delivered information to devices. This secure solution retains critical information behind corporate firewalls, so all could be confident that information transmitted would remain safe. Through this partnership, Fujitsu developed a critical solution and demonstrated exceptional systems integration skills, despite the very tight timescales. 48 hours before departure, all devices were configured so that users could send and receive personal emails. The flight out to Canada was used to ensure that they were fully familiar with the user interface.

Throughout the entire race, the technical leader kept in touch with the support team and the racers using a Sony Ericsson P900 running OpenHand. Tony stated “Sometimes I would be working in my garden over the weekend and I would be communicating and running the entire project via email with a team thousands of miles away, and over seven time zones away, using nothing more than email on a mobile phone”.

The Benefits

Fujitsu’s mobile technology solution proved to be a huge success. Even in such harsh conditions, it performed effectively and reliably.

Paul Hogan of Team Fujitsu was amazed when he took his PDA out of the side pocket of his sled where it had been all day, thawed it out under his arm, turned it on and saw it boot up immediately.

Speed of responsiveness – Fujitsu went from concept to deployment in just 5 weeks, designing and building a solution to withstand very extreme conditions. Just think of what we can do for you!

Design of an appropriate technology solution – Fujitsu listened and understood the key requirements, desires and concerns before designing a solution that was fit for purpose, rather than one that was overly complicated.

Asynchronous communication – all were able to send and receive emails at times convenient to them.

Saving money – Satellite data transmission is expensive. The Fujitsu solution used appropriate existing technology and ensured minimum connect time. This “store and forward” approach also increased reliability as dependence on maintaining a data link via satellite was kept to a minimum.

Easy to use solution – this is critical when eyes cannot see due to snow blindness and frozen fingers do not work quickly. The design of the PDA used colours to contrast with the snow and improve clarity, whilst ‘drop down’ selectionaided ease of use.

Robust solution – Fujitsu’s solution worked exceptionally well on the ice and proved itself to be remarkably resilient to the cold.

Impeccable customer service – It is not often that any organisation can claim to go to the ‘end of the earth’ to deliver customer satisfaction, but this is just what Fujitsu did. Our ‘on ice’ engineer was on hand to provide Team Fujitsu and the race support team with technical expertise.

Added value to the mission – the solution allowed team members to talk to each other and to their families at home. This contact was two-way, meaning that families could get in touch as well as vice versa. Team Fujitsu captain, Chris McLeod, was initially sceptical, but said “this facility is now a piece of equipment I would not like to go on the ice without”.

Fujitsu also provides mobile working solutions to customers in more hospitable climates. Feedback from research conducted by Fujitsu has shown that these, too, have experienced dramatic benefits once mobile technology has been deployed to appropriate personnel, with high expectations not only being met, but often exceeded. Mobile technologies have been proven to increase employee productivity and morale. The reduction in operational costs is also a key consideration.

The Implementation

This was the first time anything like this had been attempted and the exceptionally short timescalesproved to be a real challenge.

Fujitsu had only 5 weeks, from concept to deployment. Full end-to-end tests were completed in the UK as racers trained. Tests were also carried out in true climatic conditions at Resolute and during thefirst four-day long leg, as the racers covered the 60miles from base to the starting point.

Basic mobile connectivity was provided through use of the Iridium Satellite network, but this only supports data transfer at extremely low bandwidths (approximately 5% of the bandwidth available over GPRS). Fujitsu found a way to use compression technology that enabled low bandwidth mobile data traffic.

Back up of data was also a key issue. Being unable to transmit would not simply be an irritation, but rather a matter of life and death. Fujitsu needed a full restore of data in a live environment. The pragmatic solution was to use 32mb SD cards, configured for the Fujitsu Mobile Engineer and other members of the team.

The Expertise

Fujitsu was truly committed to the entire project. As evidenced by the Polar Challenge, Fujitsu’s employees work as a team and have a keen focus on improvement. Fujitsu continually looks to improve processes and ways of working, re-evaluating to discover how best we can help your business. This “Better, Faster, Sharper” mantra was clearly demonstrated in Team Fujitsu as they continuously refined their processes. This included stripping 20 minutes off the time required to boil water each day so they could push on faster and increase their capacity to win the race. Minutes saved could be measured in additional kilometres travelled that day.

Fujitsu’s mobile technology expertise is clear, but we also push the boundaries and help individuals and companies achieve the extraordinary. With the right planning, we can all exceed expectations. Critically, Fujitsu understood the issues and applied the right processes with the right passion and application. The IT systems were critical to the success of the race and its safety. However, technology was not used for technology’s sake. Instead, the most appropriate solutionwas developed.

Fujitsu is committed to making your business as successful as the winning team of the 2004 Fujitsu Polar Challenge.

Together, the possibilities are infinite.