New system for corporation

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 32

New system for corporation

The Accident Compensation ' Corporation ■ is developing an information system to service all of its operations. The priority functions of the corporation are: • Prevention of all accidents and potential accidents to enhance the quality of life and reduce suffering. • Promoting a vigorous programme for the medical and vocational rehabilitation of injured persons. • Paying realistic compensation promptly, accurately and consistently. “As with any modern organisation engaged in providing a service to the public, we cannot function efficiently without a sound base of information,” says the corporation’s managing director. Mr J. L. Fahy. “One of the main problems experienced in our development has been the growth and spread of information systems in an unco-ordinated manner. This has resulted in fragmented systems, duplicated data, insufficient knowledge of available data, and

poor access to that data. “It was resolved in 1981 to undertake a complete review of the corporate information needs. From this resolve has emerged a formal project to define, design, and implement a completely integrated information system to support the operations of the organisation." An internationally accepted project management system, Spectrum, is being used to control the project. The project team consists of corporation staff from both user and data processing areas, and a Lower Hutt consultancy firm, Systems Resources. Ltd, was contracted to supply a project manager. Mr M. D. Francis started in that capacity on a part-time basis in October. 1981. The project consists of a number of stages: user requirements definition; preliminary design; tender for hardware and software; detailed design; programming/ software adaptation; implementation; and review. The logical user requirement specifications are nearing completion. They have been produced using the structured systems analysis techniques of Yourdon, de Marco, Gane, and Sarson. The specifications take the

form of a complete set of data-flow diagrams to show a logical model of the corporation's systems, supported by a data dictionary describing in detail all components, procedures and elements of data in the system. The data dictionary has been built with MSP's “Datamanager" package on the corporation’s IBM 4331 machine. The requirement specifications produced are undergoing evaluation and quality review at present. It is expected that preliminary design will be completed and tender documents for both hardware and software issued in the second quarter of 1983. It has therefore recently been arranged for the two year lease of an IBM 4341 machine to be installed to replace the existing 4331 and take over the bureau processing. The corporation has issued a statement to potential suppliers of hardware and software ’for the new system that “under no circumstances will the interim 4341 machine be used to develop any aspects of the integrated information system." An assurance is also given that the lease of the 4341 in no way gives IBM a competitive edge for tendering.