Since it ironed out those problems, Teva has been through two successful audits for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, Loane says. In addition, the tool has helped to boost the quality of overall application development because the company added a step in the process to query the requester of the change about his satisfaction with that change.

"It is a neat check to make sure we are really listening to what people are saying," Loane says. "We haven't gotten any requests for rework after the fact. Everyone knows we are going to ask the user if they got what they asked for, [and] it tends to improve the quality overall."

ADM Investor Services Inc. last year expanded its use of Alexsys Corp.'s team management tools. Instead of just tracking help desk problems, it's now used throughout ADM's development process as part of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, says Sam Helmich, vice president of technology at the Chicago-based futures trading company.

The subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland Co. reconfigured the system so that as employees put in requests for programming projects, those requests are automatically sent to be approved by managers and reviewed by business analysts. They are then sent to the developers and testers who perform the work, he says. Before going to production, the original requester can review proposed changes to see if they meet the business need, Helmich says. The system also documents installation instructions and can allow the installer to acknowledge that such instructions were followed, he adds.

Tracking changes