20 years to implement police IT system: report

20 years!
wtf! what, are they using gijima again?
 
16252_Vodacom_The_Dictator_3_zpsf202d4c9.jpg
 
Aaah, I want that contract!!! 8 hour working week & it will tide me over nicely till retirement!
 
I can see the image just fine .......... Photobucket does not require registration :rolleyes:
 
I would really like to know the details of what exactly is going on. Because it is easy to see that large amount of money and think all of that went to the software. Or to really know what the underlying problem is. Having worked in government projects before I have seen reporting on it become really confused.

I think a big problem is that a roll-out of a system like that is not just software. There is almost no underlying infrastructure to depend on. As far as I understand they have to build all the back-office, all the front-office, all the connectivity and networking infrastructure. This includes anything from network connections to scanners to training.

Just to put it in context - I have recently seen quotes for wiring of a small office for Ethernet points at every desk. The cheapest quote was R 7,000. Even assuming that somehow they can do each police station for HALF the price then wiring 1000 policy stations will cost R 3,500 x 1000 = R 3,500,000. And this is just putting in network cables. Is this part or not part of the project? I don't know, but the project is definitely dependent on networks in police stations....

So another back-off the envelope calculation. The SAPS has 150,000 officers and employs another 40,000 civilians. I assume with a system like this at least 90% of the total workforce of the SAPS must be trained (so we exclude cleaners and so forth). That is 170,000 people. Well -- just make it 150,000. If training comes in at a basement bargain price of R500 per person that equates to R75,000,000. And I seriously doubt that training will come in at only R500 per person...


Ok -- so I made a lot of assumptions in the above calculations - but it really is just to demonstrate that people see large amounts of money and have no real way to put it in perspective. What will be helpful if we can compare the SAPS operating budget for IT with large companies with similar number of employees.
 
Some members of Parliament have called for the system to be scrapped, saying it would be outdated by the time it came into full implementation, reported the Saturday Star.
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Yes, of course they would like to scrap it - then the dockets of cases where THEY are investigated can't disappear anymore. What muppets!
 
Johand said:
I would really like to know the details of what exactly is going on. Because it is easy to see that large amount of money and think all of that went to the software. Or to really know what the underlying problem is. Having worked in government projects before I have seen reporting on it become really confused.

I think a big problem is that a roll-out of a system like that is not just software. There is almost no underlying infrastructure to depend on. As far as I understand they have to build all the back-office, all the front-office, all the connectivity and networking infrastructure. This includes anything from network connections to scanners to training.

Just to put it in context - I have recently seen quotes for wiring of a small office for Ethernet points at every desk. The cheapest quote was R 7,000. Even assuming that somehow they can do each police station for HALF the price then wiring 1000 policy stations will cost R 3,500 x 1000 = R 3,500,000. And this is just putting in network cables. Is this part or not part of the project? I don't know, but the project is definitely dependent on networks in police stations....

So another back-off the envelope calculation. The SAPS has 150,000 officers and employs another 40,000 civilians. I assume with a system like this at least 90% of the total workforce of the SAPS must be trained (so we exclude cleaners and so forth). That is 170,000 people. Well -- just make it 150,000. If training comes in at a basement bargain price of R500 per person that equates to R75,000,000. And I seriously doubt that training will come in at only R500 per person...


Ok -- so I made a lot of assumptions in the above calculations - but it really is just to demonstrate that people see large amounts of money and have no real way to put it in perspective. What will be helpful if we can compare the SAPS operating budget for IT with large companies with similar number of employees.
Click to expand...

I've been involved with some of the SITA projects that ran into this project so have an idea of some of the technology involved, and I know from experience with the same software in large European customers (for example bank - 60 000+ employees) was about $4 mil. But with that said, you can't really compare the systems like that but it gives you a rough idea.

I think the bottom line here is that the infrastructure and training to all the police stations country wide is the hold up. But with any proper centralized system such as this, THAT (network and training) is going to be the bottleneck. So it won't help to scrap the system and start from scratch with something new because the problem is just the distribution to all the cop shops... oh and that brings us back to the pathetic broadband strategies from DoC, AND the low qualifying standards and training for cops. So it all goes full circle and actually has very little to do with the actual technology.
 
A simple SAAS cloud based solution will cost a couple of million to implement and a few many more million to buy licenses.

Rolling out to all the police stations should not stop the system from being up and running from early on.

This is an abysmal failure.
 
20 years may as well be forever because in 20 years it won't be properly finished given the means at their disposal.
 
All you need is money and a dev house that knows what they are doing. You could have their system in place in 3 years rolled out to all their offices etc.
 
Knersus said:
I think the bottom line here is that the infrastructure and training to all the police stations country wide is the hold up. But with any proper centralized system such as this, THAT (network and training) is going to be the bottleneck. So it won't help to scrap the system and start from scratch with something new because the problem is just the distribution to all the cop shops... oh and that brings us back to the pathetic broadband strategies from DoC, AND the low qualifying standards and training for cops. So it all goes full circle and actually has very little to do with the actual technology.
Click to expand...

Yes. This. Exactly.



requiem said:
A simple SAAS cloud based solution will cost a couple of million to implement and a few many more million to buy licenses.

Rolling out to all the police stations should not stop the system from being up and running from early on.

This is an abysmal failure.
Click to expand...

There is not enough information in the article to make the statement. IT in these big organizations (private or public) often as very little to do with thte technology but more to do with the organization. Who knows where the bottleneck is exactly? Maybe the system is up and running but nobody can access it due to lack of infrastructure (a problem which SaaS does not solve by the way).

Hamster said:
All you need is money and a dev house that knows what they are doing. You could have their system in place in 3 years rolled out to all their offices etc.
Click to expand...


Huh? Do you know that the actual software is often a very small part of the budget of these projects? Look at COTS projects. The same software can be deployed fast and successful and companies will report that it gave them a competitive edge and in other companies it is a complete failure. Look at SAP and Oracle projects - there is not a day that goes by without some disaster project in the news. But companies keep buying it... because for every unsuccessful project there is often ten very successful ones.

A good dev house is pretty much restricted by the performance of the client. This goes for requirements gathering, sign-offs, client satisfying all of the dependencies. Even things like prompt payment and advance planning has a major effect - because dev houses need to plan their resource pipelines...
 
So in 20 years time the SAP will be running Windows 8 while the whole world will be running Windows 12 or maybe even Android 25 which might be called Black Forest Cake
 
I'd like to point out that google is not even 20 years old yet...
 
mmmig said:
So in 20 years time the SAP will be running Windows 8 while the whole world will be running Windows 12 or maybe even Android 25 which might be called Black Forest Cake
Click to expand...

Would be nice if in 20 yrs all government was running on Linux and/or other FLOSS software in preference to spending tax money on commerical software licenses.
 
Compton_effect said:
Don't ask, but I know for a fact SITA is looking at other options. Including a few involving open-source components.
But as a veteran of Goverment IT contracts - don't hold your breath.
Click to expand...

Anything Government related, I wouldn't hold my breath! Any company will find a way to milk as much money as possible out of the Government.
 
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