Vignette: Boeing Dreamliner
Faces a Few Bumps in the Road
1.
Is this
example of software problems holding up the introduction of a major new product
and impacting a firm’s customers and suppliers unusual, or is it a common
occurrence?
For me, software problems holding
up the introduction of a major new product and impacting a firm’s customers and
suppliers commonly occur. It is not unusual to a software program to fail and
come up with some major errors which may definitely affect the introduction of
other products as whole. As how the
success of the software program rapidly spread and expand is as very much alike
on how the failure instantly arises and automatically receive astonish critics.
That’s why it’s not strange to hear or read such events or issues because as
expected, developing a software program does not necessarily means perfect at
all, it must and it should go through an roller coaster of up’s and downs to
appreciate its value.
2. What can organizations do to
reduce the negative consequences of software development problems in the
production of their products and the operation of their business processes and
facilities?
Operations management is a
multi-disciplinary field that focuses on managing all aspects of an
organization's operations. "The typical organization consists of the
integration of many different functions. Operations management focuses on the
function of providing the product or service. It is concerned with the planning
and controlling of all activities necessary for the provision of the firm's
product or service.
Designing the system, begins with
product development. Product development involves determining the
characteristics and features of the good (or service if engaged in a
service-oriented industry) to be sold. It should begin with an assessment of
customer needs and eventually grow into a detailed product design. The
facilities and equipment that will produce the product, as well as the
information systems needed to monitor and control performance, are part of this
system design process. In fact, manufacturing process decisions are integral to
a system's ultimate success or failure.
Planning the system, describes how
management expects to utilize the existing resource base created as a result of
the production system design. One of the outcomes of this planning process may
be to change the system design to cope with environmental changes. For example,
management may decide to increase or decrease capacity to cope with changing
demand, or rearrange layout to enhance efficiency.
Managing the system, involves
working with people to encourage participation and improve organizational
performance. Participative management and teamwork are an essential part of
successful operations, as are leadership, training, and culture. In addition,
material management and quality are two key areas of concern.
Case
Study # 3: Patriot Missile Failure
1.
With the benefit of hindsight, what steps could have been taken during
development of the Patriot software to avoid the problems that led to the loss
of life? Do you think these steps would have improved the Patriot’s
effectiveness enough to make it obvious that the missile was a strong deterrent
against the Scud? Why or why not?
On February 25, 1991 a Patriot
missile battery failed to intercept an incoming Scud missile aimed at an army
barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. When
the Scud missile hit the barracks 28 soldiers lost their lives and 99 were
wounded. This was the largest single
loss of life among coalition forces in that war. The point we make here is that errors in
design and implementation of hardware and software systems can, and often do,
carry a human cost. Good design is not
just an academic issue – it is also a human issue. Although the incoming
missile was initially detected, on the subsequent attempts at confirmation it
was not found to be within the predicted location cone. Therefore the incoming missile was not
tracked and the Patriot missile was not fired. As so often is the case, the
software component is encased within a system of hardware components which, in
turn, is embedded within a much larger system of personnel and situational
considerations. Because of this a lot of
factors contributed to the final outcome. As we dig deep for the root cause of
the problem, we note the similarity to our analysis of the Ariane 5 rocket
explosion. In both cases a pre-existing
system was adapted to a new circumstance.
But the new rocket design turned out to be so different as to require a
deeper analysis of the entire system which was not carried out. In particular, a new round of testing should
have been specified.
2. What ethical decisions do
you think the U.S. military made in choosing to deploy the Patriot missile to
Israel and Saudi Arabia and in reporting the effectiveness of the Patriot
system?
One must first
consider the welfare of everybody. When it does tend to be too serious and
dangerous to the public, it must be very careful in dealing with such things.
It is not just software, it can cause harm to the majority when it experience
failure and error in the program. Before deploying it to other places, they
might consider the effects, the possible outcomes, and the danger or harm that
it might bring to the people. Also, when reporting the effectiveness of the
Patriot system, just pretty sure that it free from hazard and troublesome
situation. People might give trust and good enough to believe that it was safe,
and then accident happened, the failure comes, and greatly damage some people.
3. What key lessons from this
example of safety-critical software development could be applied to the
development of business information system software?
Safety-critical software is any
kind of hazardous software, including software that directly contributes to a
hazard or controls it. Lessons must be there has to be a project management
plan for the development of safety-critical software. This plan should outline
all the work that is being done so as to make for the best performance of the safety-critical
software. This includes various aspects such as the project's organizational
structure and interfaces. The safety plan -- another important aspect of
project management for safety-critical software development -- provides an
outline of the various analyses to be done on the safety-critical software
during its development. It also provides a schedule for performing such
analyses.
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