Based in Miami, Florida, Ryder Systems was divided into 5 distinct, nearly independent service divisions which included Local/One-Way, Long-Distance, Leasing and Fleet Management. Our project through Andersen Consulting was to track not only vehicles, but every component of those vehicles, into a state of the art system using PowerBuilder rapid application development (RAD) tool for the front-end interfacing Sybase databases.
Not all divisions were initially involved in the system development – our project team lobbied through a series of presentations in order to persuade them to buy into the project. Our team was quarted at Andersen owned condominiums bordering the Doral Golf Course in the northern sector of the city. The main Ryder Headquarters were in a new facility (still under construction) towards the downtown are, while we rented office space in a building next to the Carnival Cruise building between the Miami-Dade County International Airport and the Doral resort area. The office upstairs from our project was occupied by FEMA personnel, still involved in the hurricane Andrew clean-up 2 years prior.
Many months later, our tracking project was credited with tying the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bomber Timothy McVeigh to the Ryder truck that he leased for use in the crime.