Travel Case Study
Delivering new, innovative tech on the largest cruise ship ever built for the UK travel market. (As of August 2021)
Case study background
Our team worked with Carnival UK in a consultancy capacity for the final 18 months of the delivery of their new cruise ship Iona, to manage and run assurance for the new and existing technology that needed to be implemented at pace on board the ship, including new mobile embarkation and point-of-sale systems, new interactive televisions in every passenger cabin, and thousands of newly-introduced RFID identity & payment cards.
Key challenges
Iona relies on a wide range of interconnected systems across the end-to-end customer and crew journeys. Our experts ensured seamless integration between these systems (many from different vendors) through careful planning and testing.
A hard deadline to meet – the maiden voyage
With the date of the ship’s maiden voyage agreed – and bookings by direct customers and travel agents already made – getting the assurance and delivery of the on-board technology right the first time was imperative to a successful first sailing.
"They brought structure and order in a flexible and balanced way, whilst bringing shape, reason and logic."
Solution approach and outcome
Measuring delivery all the way to success
We developed an automated management solution, integrated with Carnival UK agile tools, that anchored assurance clarity against each of the 160+ IT platforms on-board Iona. This in turn mapped into customer and crew “journeys”, to provide confidence in the test coverage of the ship’s navigation, safety, hospitality, communications, and entertainment systems.
“A maiden cruise like no other”
Following successful sea trials to ensure the operation of its on-board systems, Iona’s long-awaited maiden journey took place on a short cruise around the UK in August 2021. Today, thanks to our IT delivery expertise, Iona’s technology continues to underpin the ship’s success as it sails around the globe – from Northern Europe to the Caribbean.
Tools & tech stack
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