Management Information Systems Essay

Information Systems Failure The Case of Computer-Aided Dispatch (Cad) System at London Ambulance helper 1. Introduction The LAS covers a geographical area of just over 600 square miles and handles emergencies for a resident cosmos of 6.8 million people. The bo under(a) throw off is one of the most frequently quoted UK-based examples of breeding transcriptions failure that took place in early 1990s. The prominence of this particular case is due to the safety critical nature of this administration and the get that 20-30 people may have lost their lives as a result of frump failure.2. Description of the manual(a) Dispatch System The manual murder system consists of a) call taking, b) imagery identification, and c) resource mobilization. Call taking Emergency calls are accredited by ambulance sustain. Control assistants write down exposit of incidents on pre-printed forms. The fix of severally incident is identified and the reference co-ordinates are save on the forms. The forms are then determined on a conveyer belt which transports them to a central collection point. Resource Identification some other members of ambulance control collect the forms, review the details on the forms and decide which resource allocator should deal with severally incident.The resource allocator examines the forms for a particular sector, compares the details against information recorded for each vehicle and decides which resource should be mobilized. The status information on these forms is updated regularly from information received via the wireless operator. The resource is recorded on the original form which is then passed on to a dispatcher. Resource mobilization The dispatcher each telephones the nearest ambulance station or passes instructions to the radio operator if an ambulance is already mobile.A number of problems subsist with the manual dispatch system. Most problems are related to the time-consuming and error-prone nature of activities such as ide ntification of the precise location of an incident, the physical movement of paper forms, and maintaining up-to-date vehicle status information. in that locationfore, a Computer- Aided Dispatch ( wienerwurst) system was considered as a solution to overcome these problems. 3. The Computer-Aided Dispatch System 3.1 intend The objective of the CAD system was to automate many of the human-intensive processes involved in the manual despatch system.3.2 How the CAD system was intended to work The essential features of the CAD system are shown in Figure 1 which illustrates how the system was intended to work in practice. British Telecom (BT) operators would route all 999 calls concerning medical emergencies to LAS headquarters. A total of 18 receivers were then expected to record on the system the name, telephone number and voice communication of the caller, and the name, destination address and brief details of the patient. This information would then be transmitted over a LAN to an all ocator. The system would pinpoint the patients location on a map. The system was also expected to monitor continuously the location of every ambulance via radio messages transmitted by each vehicle. The system would then determine the nearest ambulance to the patient.Figure 1 The structure of CAD system at LASExperienced ambulance dispatchers were organized into squads based on three zones (south, north-east, and north-west). Dispatchers would be offered details of the three nearest ambulances by the system and the estimated time each would need to reach the scene. The dispatcher would choose an ambulance and send patient details to a small terminal screen located on the dashboard of the ambulance. The ambulance crew would then be expected to confirm that it was on its way. If the selected ambulance was in an ambulance depot then the dispatch message would be received on the station computer. The ambulance crew would always be expected to acknowledge a message. The system would au tomatically alter HQ of any ambulance where no acknowledgement was make. A follow-up message would then be sent from HQ. The system would detect messages that would tell HQ when the ambulance crew had arrived, when it was on its way to a infirmary and when it was free again.3.3 How the CAD system was construct The CAD system was built as an event-based system victimisation a rule-based approach and was intended to interact with a geographical information system (GIS). The system was built by a small software program product house called Systems Options using their own GIS software (WINGS) running under Microsoft Windows. The GIS communicated with Datatraks automatic vehicle tracking system. The system ran on a series of network PCs and load servers supplied by Apricot. 4. Events that Identified the Flaws of the CAD System On the night of the 26th October 1992 (Monday), things started to go wrong at the HQ of LAS. A flood of 999 calls apparently swamped operators screens and many of those calls were being wiped off screens for unknown reasons. Claims were later made that 20 to 30 people may have died as a result of ambulance arriving late on the scene. Some ambulances took over three hours to answer a call while the governments recommended supreme was 17 minutes.Mr. John Wilby, the chief executive officer of LAS resigned within a couple of eld of this event. A number of Members of Parliament called for a public inquiry. The Health Secretary initiated an inquiry and the findings were eventually published in an 80-page report in February, 1993, which immediately became headline news in both the computing and the national press.5. Findings of the examination The inquiry found evidence of poor anxiety practice, high technological complexities and unfavorable operating environment involved in the implementation of the CAD system in LAS. Systems Options, the company responsible for bettering the study part of the CAD system had no previous experience of bu ilding similar type of systems. This company, which had win the 1.1 million contract for the development of the CAD system in June 1991, was found to have substantially bid an established supplier (McDonnellDouglas). Hence, Systems Options was under serious pressure to complete the system quickly. The managing director of a competing software house wrote various memoranda to LAS management in June and July 1991 describing the project as totally and fatally flaw. It appeared that Mr. Wilby ignored what amounted to an over-ambitious project timetable. Furthermore, an audit report by Anderson Consulting which called for more finance and longer time scales for the CAD project was suppressed by the project managers.The board of management of LAS was even misled by the project team over the experience of Systems Options and the references supplied by Systems Options were non thoroughly investigated. Due to the extreme time pressure to develop the CAD system within the allocated timefr ame, the project team responsible for developing the system practically did non follow any standard systems development approach. As a result, the resultant software was incomplete and unstable. In January 1992, phases one and two of the project began live trials. In March 1992, phase two of the trials was temporarily hang up due to the discovery of system errors. In October 1992, phase three was terminated after two days of reported chaos described above. Questions were raised about the complexity of the technical system. In the manual dispatch system, communication between HQ and ambulances is conducted via telephone or voice radio think. In the CAD system, links between communication, logging and dispatching via a GIS were meant to be automated.The automation was completed but no performance interrogatory was thoroughly performed due to the rushed approach to meet the deadline. The system was lightly loaded at start-up on the 26th October, 1992. Any problems, caused by the co mmunications systems (e.g. ambulance crews pressing wrong buttons, or ambulances being in radio black spots) could be effectively managed by staff. However, as the number of ambulance incidents adjoind, the amount of defective vehicle information recorded by the system also increased. This had a knock-on effect in that the system made incorrect allocations on the basis of the information that it had. For example, multiple vehicles were sent to the same incident, or the closet vehicle was not chosen for the dispatch. As a result, the system had fewer ambulance resources to allocate.At the receiving end, patients became frustrated with the delays to ambulances arriving at incidents. This led to an increase in the number of calls made back to the LAS HQ relating to already recorded incidents. The increased volume of calls, unitedly with a slow system and an insufficient number of call-takers, contributed to significant delays in answering the telephones which, in turn, caused shape up delays to patients. At the ambulance end, crews became increasingly frustrated at incorrect allocations and this led to an increased number of instances where they failed to press the good status buttons. The system therefore appears to have been in a vicious circle of cause and effect.There was also an apparent mismatch of perspectives among LAS management, HQ staff, and ambulance staff. The system has been described as being introduced in an aureole of mistrust by staff. There was incomplete ownership of the system by the majority of LAS staff. The hardware and software suppliers involved in this project reported low staff morale and friction between LAS management and workforce. In other words, an atmosphere of hostility towards the computing systems was observed. One of the reasons for low staff morale was that control room staff lacked previous experience of using computer systems. 6. Conclusion In summary, no iodin element of the case can be regarded as the sole cause f or the failure of the CAD system in LAS. The description demonstrates that failure of information systems projects tend to be multi-faceted in nature.Discuss Questionsa) Discuss the CAD system in terms of Interaction Failure. b) What lessons can be learned from the failure of the CAD project in LAS?