Short sightedness in System Development - Part 1

Today when I look back, there are plenty of systems that were ill conceived and tardily implemented. This malice exists in all sectors; be it Government, Public sector or Private sector.

Most of the systems are designed to meet yesterday’s problems and have no thought for challenges in the future. Later on a patchwork is done to meet a problem faced. The focus is always on applying band-aid and not taking comprehensive action. The fault lies equally with both management and systems group. There is no clear understanding of the underlying problem and readiness to put adequate resources both human and financial.

In PSUs there is no ownership of systems at board of directors level. There is no systematic review of existing systems for correction or upgradation. Management wants creation of Dash Boards for various things without ensuring a robust underlying system infrastructure.

In private sector, many times the owner thinks, he knows everything and the systems are developed to meet his requirements without following good database management practices.

Every company wants to implement ERP system. Most managements think that ERP is the solution for all their problems. It is fashionable to declare that company has implemented ERP. For most people ERP is a black box. Basic requirement for ERP is existence of strong manual/ electronic system that is being followed.

It is usual practice to form a taskforce for the development and implementation of a new system. This practice is applicable even for ERP.It is prestigious to be a member of a taskforce. At the same time no department wants to nominate their knowledgeable and performing employees. The departments nominate such employees whose absence won’t affect productivity and at the same time the individual is acceptable to approving authority. If the assignment involves foreign tour the pressures are much more in selection of the team. A foreign tour is always seen as a reward and naturally there are many aspirants who have no connection with the process otherwise. From day one the system is doomed.

The first system that comes to mind is Permanent Account number (PAN) system of Income tax department. In 1980s it was implemented. If you file return for more than two years, you were required to apply for PAN. There was no centralised system for issuing and maintaining the data. There were numerous cases of individuals having more than one PAN card number. With number of persons filing going up, it is to be seen how long the existing numbering system will be adequate.

Railways introduced with lots of fanfare centralised passenger railway ticket booking system for mail/ express trains. Passenger traffic brings miniscule part of revenue and major earning is from goods traffic. However there is no centralised system for booking goods. When the online system was introduced to public, there was no analysis of traffic, bandwidth requirement, number of concurrent users and hardware redundancy. It became a nightmare to book a ticket using IRCTC website. The online system does not allow user to select seats of choice, the only choice is upper or lower berth leading to hardships during travel. If you want specific seats then go to booking office, stand in long queue and request the booking clerk. Before computerized reservation, one was given benefit of long distance in fare even if you had to change trains. The computerized reservation system does not allow you to book a ticket for more than one train for a destination. You are required to go through the rigors of bookingtickets for as many trains involved.In the process the benefit of telescopic rate is denied to passenger. When you book a ticket, origin station and destination station have to be selected. During the process list station pops up confusing the user. If one wants to book a ticket to Mumbai five or six station names come and you are required to select appropriate station. Later when you select a train you will get a message that the train doesn’t go to that station. Already the connection is slow and tests the patience of user. After wasting lot of time when you reach payment stage, you will receive a message that reservation is full. 

Before computerisation most of the mail/ express trains had 2 digit numbers. As the train used to pass through different zones, the train would be changing. During computerisation, it was thought that all mail/ express trains should have unique number. They designed train number system to identify the owner zone of the train and whether it is classified as superfast. It put a limitation as there could be only 49 pairs of category for each zone. The system also did not cater to creation of new zones by Government. Within few years they had to change the numbering system by making it 5 digit.

From our childhood we had vehicle number plates having 3 letters indicating state and RTO followed by 4 digit number. In 1980s this was changed to 2 letter state code plus 2 digit RTO code within state followed by 4 digits. This codification did not take into account the rapid growth in vehicle production and purchase by citizens. This led to introduction alphabets between RTO code and number. After exhausting two alphabets now additional RTO codes are created. How long this will suffice has to be seen.