Case Study - Jetblue and Westjet : A tale of Two Software Implementations

    The reservation system is more than just automated ticketing for an airline, it is the interface that customers come to know and love (or hate) as they find cheap flights, select seats, upgrade for more leg room, and cash in their frequent flyer points. Two discount airlines, jetblue and westjet, both chose to replace their aging system with software from Sabre, the company that owns havelocity and handles reservations for more than 300 other airlines. the similarity in their software implementation projects ends there, however, and the differences between them after some important lessons.

     Westjet, Canada's second-largest airline, was in the unfortunate position of going first. Company executives wisely decided to make the cutover during the winter, when passenger count was lower, but they didn't try to lower the volume further by limiting the number of tickets sold. they also decided against warning passengers that a change was coming until the go-live date. Westjet VP Bob Cummings commented, "We didn't want to telegraph dates so a competitor would put on a big fare sale."

     For the cutover, Westjet had to transition 840,000 customer accounts to the new system for passengers who had already purchased tickets, migrating the data from westjet's servers in Calgary to Sabre's servers in Tulsa. the migration suffered from glitches, and WestJet's website crashed. Customers suffered long waits and angry bloggers posted their complaints.

    WestJet had kindly invited Jetblue staffers to observer the transition, and the visitors eagerly absorbed the lessons. first, the knew they could avoid the website crash by bringing up a backup site. they also learned to emphasize communications and the alerted customers and other stake-holders weeks ahead. the jetblue blog was the platform they used to explain how the company was preparing for the software implementation. jetblue wanted to keep the number of passengers low when the cutover occured, giving employees more time to troubleshoot problems, so it pre-canceled 56 flights and restricted ticket sales on the remainder. To make sure customers didn't have to wait in long phone queues, the company hired 500 temporary reservation agents and kept them on bound for two months. Rick Zent, the JetBlue VP who led the project, said the extra agents were "one of the wisest investments we made."

     Although glitches occured and not all kiosks immediately functioned properly, observers gave JetBlue high marks. The whole company pitched in, and even executives were in the airport in shifts, solving problems and helping out. changing an airline's reservation system is an enormous, so its "brain transplant" caused minimal disruption.

Discussiong Questions

1. What are some key differences between the jetblue and westjet software implementations?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of communicating a major project in advance?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of adjusting business volume during a major business project?

4. Beyond not being the first firm to implement a particular piece of software, what other more general lessons apply for software implementations?

Created by :  

• Adam Fernando (0000009257)  
• Andri Alvian (00000004758)
• Aryo Theo (000000007083)

 Download the answer below : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8MZGt1RavZPSlFPR3h0X1dBMUU

CASE STUDY #1 - U.K. Police Track Supicious in Real Time with Cameras and the Licence Plate Database

U.K. Police Track Suspicious Vehicles in Real Time with Cameras and the License Plate Database

A

lmost every city street in London is under constant video surveillance, partly as a reaction to terrorist attacks. These closed-circuit cameras initially created tapes that could be viewed later, but the technology now is far more capable. The cameras are equipped with automatic license plate recognition capabilities, which use optical character recognition to decipher the license plate numbers and letters in near real-time (Figure 4-29).

The camera’s data is sent to the national ANPR Data Centre in north London, which also houses the Police National Computer. Cameras are widespread throughout the city, and many are mounted on police vehicles. Each camera can perform 100 million license plate reads per day. Each vehicle’s plate number is combined with the camera’s GPS location and a timestamp, so the Oracle database at the Data Center contains detailed information about the whereabouts of almost every vehicle.

Since the database is linked to the Police National Computer, police on the beat can query it to see whether a nearby vehicle is flagged for some reason. Cross-checking the license plate information against the crime database can turn up vehicles involved in crimes or registered to wanted criminals. In one case, a police constable was killed during a robbery, and police were able to track the getaway car because its license plate was read by the cameras. For cameras mounted on vehicles, the officer does not even need to send a query. An audio alert goes off when the camera’s image matches a flagged license plate number, prompting the police to investigate.

Beyond criminal activity, the police database contains extensive information linked to the license plate data. For instance, a car might show that it is registered to someone who owes parking fines, or who is uninsured. The data might also show that the license plate is attached to the wrong vehicle, pointing to stolen plates.

The data are maintained for 5 years, creating a rich repository for data mining. One study found that certain cars triggered no flags, but seemed to be making impossibly quick journeys from one end of town to the other. Police discovered that car thieves were trying to outwit ANPR by “car cloning,” in which the perpetrators duplicate a real license plate and attach it to a stolen car of the same make and model.

Law enforcement agencies see the license plate database, the cameras that feed it, and its integration with police data as a revolutionary advance, even though there are still gaps in coverage and the technology itself is not perfect. For example, rain, fog, and snow can interfere, and the plate itself might be blurred by mud. The plates themselves vary quite a bit, with different colors, fonts, and background images. Despite the drawbacks, police departments in the United States and other countries are rapidly adopting the system, buying camera equipped cars, and developing smartphone access to databases.

Privacy advocates, however, are concerned about the mounting power of integrated databases and surveillance technologies to scrutinize human behavior. One judge remarked, “A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, or an associate of a particular individual or political group.” The United Kingdom is tightening regulations to provide better protections for citizens in an attempt to balance privacy concerns against the enormous value these databases offer to law enforcement.

Discussion Questions

4-31.  Describe the manner in which data elements are linked across databases.

4-32.  What technical and physical challenges does this information system face?

4-33.  What human capital capabilities for law enforcement are necessary to make the database more effective?

4-34.  What are the relevant considerations to balance the police’s ability to investigate versus the citizens’ need for privacy?

Sources: Crump, C. (March 19, 2013). ACLU in court today arguing that GPS tracking requires a warrant. ACLU.org, http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/aclu-courttoday-arguing-gps-tracking-requires-warrant, accessed March 24, 2013.

Du, S., Ibrahim, M., Shehata, M., & Badawy, W. (2013). Automatic license plate recognition (APLR): A state of the art review. IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems for Video Technology (Feb. 2013), 23(2), 311–325. Retrieved from Business Source Premier, April 4, 2013.

Mathieson, S. A., & Evans, R. (August 27, 2012). Roadside cameras suffer from large gaps in coverage, police admin. The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/27/policenumber-plate-cameras-network-patchy, accessed March 24, 2013.

National Vehicle Tracking Database, http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/National_Vehicle_Tracking_Database, accessed March 24, 2013.

Police in Jackson, MS, use Genetec license plate recognition technology. (March 14, 2013). Government Security News, http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/28730?c=law_enforcement_first_responders, accessed March 24, 2013.

Created by :  

• Adam Fernando (0000009257)  
• Andri Alvian (00000004758)
• Aryo Theo (000000007083)

 Download the answer below :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8MZGt1RavZPNmM3YUxUMXNaWXc/view?usp=sharing