Unisys Completes Four-Year IRS Project

By Patience Wait, Staff Writer

Unisys Corp. has completed a nearly four-years-long effort helping the Internal Revenue Service consolidate its mainframe computing operations, the company announced.

Unisys of Blue Bell, Pa., worked with the IRS to consolidate 12 data processing centers into three centers, and 67 mainframe computers down to less than 20.

The company said the project, considered one of the most complex consolidation efforts in the government, was finished on time and within budget.

The IRS now operates data processing centers in Martinsburg, W.Va., Memphis, Tenn., and Detroit. With the consolidation, IRS is improving operational efficiencies by enabling customer service representatives to respond to calls more quickly and by expanding customer service hours.

The consolidation program also enhanced the agency's data storage and data protection capabilities, laying the groundwork for future modernization efforts and electronic business transactions.

"The challenge of this consolidation effort was that we were making significant changes to the information technology architecture while ensuring business as usual throughout the IRS," said Bob Majchrzak, the Unisys IRS program director.

After each service center consolidation, Unisys adjusted the implementation plan to take advantage of lessons learned, which made the next consolidation even smoother, he said.

"We leveraged best practices to continuously elevate our team's performance so that the consolidations were transparent to the users," Majchrzak said.

More than 1,000 Unisys, IRS and other vendor employees collaborated to ensure a smooth transition of the data processing centers.

The IRS also determined that its IT infrastructure was outdated and tasked Unisys with upgrading and installing 17,000 computer workstations. This enhancement helped the IRS make the transition from outdated technology to a state-of-the-market mainframe environment, Majchrzak said.