iXP Provides Integration Services for New Fire Department of NY CAD System

Sector: Municipal

Focus: Package CAD Integration Services

Started: 2004

Situation

FDNY operated two CAD systems which were custom-developed for fire and emergency medical responses. They were an integral part of the FDNY emergency dispatching operation that has been reliable for many years. These systems embodied many complex business rules to provide NYC with excellent response times in the face of very high call volumes. However, the hardware that supported these systems had reached the end of its lifecycle and obtaining replacement parts has become progressively more difficult. The software environment was similarly dated and difficult to maintain. In order to address year 2000 issues, the applications were re-hosted to current hardware technology; however, no significant changes were made to the application itself. As a result, the FDNY is not able to make use of features such as mapping that are now commonly found in CAD systems.

As part of a citywide public safety initiative FDNY was directed to implement the Motorola Printrak CAD system. This system was intended to replace four separate Fire and Police CAD systems.

Solution

• iXP was engaged by FDNY to perform package integration services in connection with its planned new CAD system. The contracted services included:
• Manage the project, including project administration, the creation and updating of a master project schedule, subcontractor management, and status / exception reporting;
• Perform requirements analysis, including development of Fire/EMD functional specifications, system performance specifications, data specifications, and business process model;
• Perform fit analysis, including gap specifications for the Motorola Printrak CAD software package to understand how it meets Fire/EMD requirements;
• Prepare integration design architectures for integration of the Motorola Printrak CAD software into the FDNY's dispatch and communications technical environment;
• Provide change management services to prepare the FDNY organization for implementation of the Motorola Printrak CAD system into a re-engineered business process environment;
• Provide configuration and testing management and training/documentation management services;
• Acquire and deploy the new computing and network communications equipment required to operate the new CAD software;
• Plan and Conduct the implementation of the new CAD system on a flexible multi-function, multi-location basis with assurance of zero disruption of the FDNY's dispatch operations. Specifically, iXP was to deploy the new CAD system at 11 Metrotech and two Borough offices and subsequently was to deploy the new CAD system at PSAC 2 and the remaining borough offices.
• Provide 3 years of Warranty support to the CAD operating environment.

Result

The iXP team led the development and subsequent review of over 2500 functional and technical requirements. These requirements were refined by a combined team of FDNY, Printrak and iXP personnel in an intensive three-month effort. Each requirement was developed in enough detail to understand how completely it would be met by the Printrak system.

iXP produced two fit and gap analyses. The first one produced at an early stage in the review summarized the major gaps in the Printrak offering and provided the CAD vendor with the opportunity to reconfigure or change its product. The final analysis detailed how well each requirement was met by the Printrak offering. It also summarized the risks of migrating to this CAD system.

iXP concluded that the implementation of this CAD system would present significant impacts that could result in field response time increases. At the end of this process iXP recommended that the Printrak product would not support the FDNY dispatch model. FDNY accepted this recommendation. Based on the risks identified by iXP, FDNY in coordination with the citywide CAD project evaluated other CAD products and alternate solutions.

Value Delivered. Problem Solved.