The project objective and scope
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) provides air navigation services to the United Kingdom and to internationally agreed areas outside the UK. In the mid eighties, it could be observed that air travellers were increasingly experiencing delays to their schedules, and so NATS attempted to introduce major changes to their air traffic control centre at West Drayton. However, this attempt ran into much difficulty and further studies showed that the West Drayton facility would run out of capacity by 1996. Therefore NATS motioned to replace the facility, that had little room for expansion to meet future demand, with a new facility on a greenfield site in Swanwick.
This facility would become the new London Area and Terminal Control Centre (LATCC) and the proposal aimed to produce 40% additional capacity to accommodate the delays that NATS were currently facing. The project not only involved a new site but a new software system that claimed to be "more advanced than anything that is being tried anywhere in the world." The software was to be based on that of a similar project in the US, therefore minimising technological risk. The project was set up as a fixed price contract with a cost of £350 million.
Project life Cycle
The initiation phase of this project began back in 1988 with a solid proposal and reasoning for the project. As we know, project success depends on effective front-end phases' though, and feasibility for this project was not be tested. Although it used a specially-selected NATS committee, the project appeared to lack adequate consultation with staff members. The new Swanwick centre proposed an overly optimistic opening date of 1996.
The planning phase took 3 years to comple...
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...oduce a high quality system only hindered the project further and it would have been beneficial to have followed Amsterdam's example with their ATC centre which used their previous system with some new hardware and function enhancements.
Another contributing factor to the failure of quality, which is crucial as the system must be safe and reliable to ensure passenger safety, is the lack of input from future users. They were left feeling cautious, concerned and not listened to. One expert felt it was paramount users trusted the system and could use it easily. The system was continually modified to meet their needs which came too late and fed back to the feeling of distrust and lack of faith in the new system. Furthermore, the failure to undertake an independent audit to confirm whether the project was on target meant that fundamental problems were not identified.
My first key highlight of the ‘trusty and reliable’ service would have to be that the metro timetable is extremely un-reliable and outdated due to the metros un-weary maintenance service and their ‘caring’ service schedules i.e. in the middle of Christmas when sales are taken place. Their timetables placed at the ‘lavish’ metro stations are outdated and outlandish as the timetables don’t even represent the actual daily schedule of the metros and that the timetables don ‘t correspond with anything related
This report calling for constructing an on-site childcare facility for employees of BWI Airport is workable and could be fully implemented by September 1. This report discusses the plan’s background, benefits, problems, costs, and time frame. Specifically, the report seeks answers to these questions:
The requirements were not well defined and the stakeholders kept on adding new features to during the development there were no clear goals defined. This led to the shift of delivery time and affected the quality.
Is change going to keep Qantas in the air, or force them to the ground?
Several measures have been put in place to try and control safety concerns. The leading areas of concern is poor working conditions for drivers, driver exhaustion, hour of service, drivers shortages, fuels prices, driver
quality we can predicate from it. The systems that fail are those who rely on
Shappell, S., & Wiegmann, D. (2009). A methodology for assessing safety programs targeting human error in aviation. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 19(3), 252-269.
In October of 1992, the new computer aided dispatch system of the London Ambulance Service (LASCAD) failed to meet the demands of use and brought their operations to a standstill. Dispatchers could no longer locate ambulances, multiple ambulances showed up for the same calls, errors built up in the queue slowing the system down further, and callers became frustrated as the hours went by with no ambulance showing up (London Ambulance Service Unofficial, n.d.). In addition, it has been targeted for causing the deaths of approximately 20-30 people in the process, due to excessive wait times for transport to the hospital. This unfortunate incident is one of the poster children for examples of the ramifications of poor management and lack of process in software development.
Stakeholders are those groups or individual in society that have a direct interest in the performance and activities of business. The main stakeholders are employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, financiers and the local community. Stakeholders may not hold any formal authority over the organization, but theorists such as Professor Charles Handy believe that a firm’s best long-term interests are served by paying close attention to the needs of each of these stakeholders. The modern view is that a firm has responsibilities to all its stakeholders i.e. everyone with a legitimate interest in the company. These include shareholders, competitors, government, employees, directors, distributors, customers, sub-contractors, pressure groups and local community. Although a company’s directors owes a legal duty to the shareholders, they also have moral responsibilities to other stakeholder group’s objectives in their entirely. As a firm can’t meet all stakeholders’ objectives in their entirety, they have to compromise. A company should try to serve the needs of these groups or individuals, but whilst some needs are common, other needs conflict. By the development of this second runway, the public and stakeholders are affected in one or other way and it can be positive and negative.
Political · The expansion of the European Union (EU)· BAA’s proposed Stanstead expansion· CAA’s new regulations on airport charges
The Board of Directors unanimously voted for the immediate construction of a new state of the art facility to meet the increased demands. Unfortunately, the construction of the new facility will take three years to be completed. Jim Elliot recognizes this gap and believes that the three year gap will be too long and suggests developing short range solution while the facility is under construction.
Aviation is accepted as the safest form of transportation. There has always been a continued improvement in airframes, engines, systems, airports, air traffic control, pilot selection and training, navigational aids, and communication. The article references other articles that identify pilots and crew as the weakest point and quotes one that “suggests pilots are more dangerous than the aircraft they fly.” Pilots are the cause in 80% of general aviation accidents. Half of those accidents were caused by poor judgment.
All they needed was someone to use it. To illustrate, Romano identified only 110 installations by August 1990, nearly two years after the procedure was developed, with 77 percent of these in two major firms [13]. Perhaps this phase, in the process of introducing the new procedure, could be called "the period of wild over-promise." However, even by the mid-1990s, ABC has not spread widely throughout the industry and "even in large firms, widespread success of ABC is not obvious" [16].
...implementation. The system is still in heavy research to bring these costs down and also to make improvements on the system. Although the full scale commercial size systems are not practical at this time, small scale experimental plant systems are being for further research. OTEC is expected to make an impact on the future.
The heart begins racing the moment the car pulls into the airport parking lot. The smell of jet fuel, automobile exhaust, and hot tarmac combine to assault the senses with images of exotic escapes and the kind of freedom that can only come from airports. I feel the thrum of the engines at takeoff and the vibration of the plane during the flight in my skin. I see people listening to MP3s and playing video games. I hear the couple behind me chatting about the weather in Florida and the possibility of rain. I recognize the smell of fading perfume that women are wearing. Chanel, Windsong and White Diamonds clash with the smell of popcorn and Quizno sandwiches.