A. Discuss the failure occurred in this case with proper examples.

> The CAD(Computer-Aided Dispatch) system project is one of the most frequently quoted
UK based examples of information systems failure that took place in early 1990s.This case is
due to the safety critical nature of this system and the claim that 20-30 people may have lost
their lives as a result of CAD failure. Before introduction of CAD system, there was another
system called manual dispatch system which is more problematic with time consuming and
error prone nature of activities such as: identification of the precise location of an incident,
the physical movement of paper forms and maintaining up to date vehicle status information.
For overcome these problems, Computer aided dispatch (CAD) was considered as a solution.
The objective of the CAD system was to automate many of the human-intensive processes
involved in the manual dispatch system.
The flaws of the CAD system were identified at the HQ of LAS (London Ambulance
Service) on the night of the 26th October 1992. A flood of 999 calls apparently swamped
operators screens and many of those calls were being wiped off screens for unknown
reasons. Some ambulances took over 3 hours to answer a call while the governments
recommended maximum was 17 minutes.After the inquiry initiated by the Health Secretary,
They found evidence of poor management practice, High technological complexities and
unfavorable operating environment involved in the CAD system in LAS. A small software
house called System Options was responsible for developing the major part of the CAD
system without any previous experience of building similar type of systems.
The managing director of a competing software house wrote various memoranda to LAS
management describing the project as totally and fatally flawed but the CEO of LAS Mr.
Wilby ignored what amounted to an over-ambitious project timetable.
An audit report by Anderson Consulting which called for more finance and longer time scaled
for the CAD project was not only hidden by the project manager but also misled the board of
management of LAS about the experience of System Options and the references were not
thoroughly investigated.
In the manual dispatch system, communication between HQ and ambulances is conducted via
telephone or voice radio links but in the CAD system, links between communication, logging
and dispatching via a GIS were automatically completed but no performance testing was
thoroughly performed due to the rushed approach to meet the dateline.

Any problem caused by the communication systems could be effectively managed by the
staff but as the number of ambulance incidents increased, the amount of incorrect vehicle
information recorded in the systems which made incorrect allocations on the basis of
information that it had. Like- multiple vehicles were sent to the same incident or the closest
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 to
incidents. This led to an increase number of calls made back to the LAS HQ relating to
already recorded incidents. The increased volume of calls, together with a slow system and an
insufficient number of call takers contributing to significant delays in answering the
telephones which caused further delays to patients. At the ambulance end, crews became
frustrated at incorrect allocations and this led to an increased number of instances where they
failed to press the right status buttons. The system therefore appears to have been in a vicious
circle of cause and effect.
There was also an apparent mismatch of perspective among LAS management, HQ staff and
ambulance staff. The system has been described as being introduced in an atmosphere of
mistrust by staff. The incomplete ownership of the system by the majority of LAS staff, low
staff morale and frictions between LAS management and workforce. Theres also a reason
that the control room staff was lacked previous experience of using computer systems.
In the end, there is no single element of the case is regarded as the sole cause for the failure
of the CAD system in LAS. But It also demonstrate the different types of failure in nature
caused the project failed.

B. What lessons can be learned from the failure of the CAD project in LAS?
> The CAD system was built as an event based system using a rule based approach and was
intended to interact with a geographical information system (GIS). From the failure of the
CAD project in LAS, we can learn many things which are given below1. The project was not intended to give some unworthy and inexperience software company
which has no success rate of software implementation in other organization.

2. The CEO of LAS and board of management should need to crosscheck the background of
the software company with their trusted 3rd party organization before implementing any big
decision like CAD system.
3. The software company should follow the standard systems development approach and after
the completion of the software they need to be checked over and over by developing pilot
project.
4. After implementation of the project at LAS, The software company should train up some
responsible people properly involved in the LAS service and also frequently check the system
for performance testing.
5. The number of calls recorded need to be increased as the system had intended to cover
about 6.8 million people.
6. The emotions, attitude, satisfaction, and overall outlook of employees during their time in
a workplace environment need to be act and work like a team.
In the end, the failure of the CAD project in LAS give us some worthy lessons to overcome
from the problem.