Analyse why London Ambulance IT project failure accurred, and where Essay

Analyse why London Ambulance IT project failure accurred, and where similar organisations might learn valuable lessens so that future IT projects don not folow - Essay Example The London Ambulance Service IT project was too ambitious and is an apt example of failure where technology was mistaken to be the solution. The London Ambulance Service (LAS) was responsible for accepting emergency medical calls and for dispatching ambulances as appropriate. LAS employed a computer aided dispatch (CAD) system to understand the emergency, resource the ambulance and dispatch. The ambulances were also fitted with an automatic vehicle location system (AVLS) which facilitated the CAD to track its progress in fulfilling a particular requirement. This project to make a CAD first started in 1987 with a budget of 3 million pounds. The objective was to automate human intensive processes of manual dispatch systems. It was abandoned in 1990 when the costs overshot but then a new management team was appointed in January 1991. After many deliberations, the system did go partially live a year later only to shut down in October 1992. LAS was the largest in the world, which covered 600 sq miles, 7 million people and had a fleet of 700 ambulances. Founded in 1930, LAS attended to 1600 emergencies per day. Government changes in NHS from mid-80s onwards led to pressure on LAS due to internal market, which led to management restructuring and disputes over working practices (London Ambulance Service Case Study). The magnanimity of the service did cause bottlenecks. Communication errors, difficulty in identifying the right locations, human judgment in identifying duplicate calls were disrupting services. To bring about overall efficiency computerization was sought. Various factors were responsible for the failure of the project, which include management ethos, bad procurement process, timetable, inexperience of suppliers, inadequate testing, poor quality assurance, poor training, and finally inadequate project management. The biggest mistake that occurred was