miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) (11/12/87)
My father is a Fire Commissioner for a large rural fire district in northeatern
Oklahoma. Recently the district hired a "consultant" to recommend a computer
system. Unfortunately, my father is VERY unhappy. It seems the system
purchased (some kind of Tandy--I haven't been able to find out exactly what)
doesn't do much more than handle paychecks and accounting stuff, which was a
low priority for the district. It cost $15,000, and the "consultant" charged
another $10,000. Now the "consultant" wants more money to buy a new system
that can do the things the district REALLY wanted in the first place. All this
is happening 1500 miles away from me, so it's difficult to get details.
However, I'd be interested in getting some opinions from net.folks that don't
have an axe to grind and may actually know something about what they're talking
about.
Here's what the computer system needs to do, in order of priority:
Priority #1:
Store, maintain, and access direction information about each residence
in the district. Problem: somebody calls the fire station, says "my house is
on fire!", and the dispatcher then asks where the house is. The person is
usually so upset that they can't give good directions, directions which would
be extremely hard to follow even if given under non-stress situations. The
difficulty is that this is a VERY rural district. Most homes are located on
unnamed dirt roads scattered all over East Jesus, with no signs and certainly
no address numbers. There really aren't even any towns or villages. The total
area is almost 200 square miles, and nobody really knows how many homes there
are. My guess is that it's not as bad as 200 square miles would seem; much of
it is permanently under water thanks to the US Army Corps of Engineers. The
idea is that directions to each home could be hand-keyed in (obviously a major
project that the district realizes could take a few years). Then when a call
is received, the dispatcher would only need to know the person's name or
perhaps phone number; typing that in would give the directions to the home.
This could be printed out on a line printer and given to the drivers as they
leave, or radioed to the drivers by the dispatcher. Speed is critical; the
information must come up rapidly. A few-minute lag between type-in and
display could cost lives. The area is growing rapidly, however, and easily
expandable memory is probably a strong requirement.
Priority #2:
Maintain a running schedule of equipment maintenance. Each vehicle
(there are about a dozen trucks total at three stations) needs to be serviced
at regular intervals, as do things like pumps, hoses, extinguishers, and such.
Keeping track of all this is getting to be a mess, and there have been some
breakdowns because "somebody forgot to change the filter". A simple list of
what is needed to be done that coming week could be produced at each daily
login.
Priority #3:
Normal accounting junk, like payroll, budgets, check printing, etc.
There are about a dozen full-time workers and maybe that many part-time, plus a
number of volunteers. The budget is small and this is not seen as a major task
by anybody; it would just save the clerk "a little time".
Does anybody have any recommendations on hardware, software, or whatever?
One thing to keep in mind is that if the system is printing checks and a fire
call comes in, you can't wait until the job is done before getting the house
directions. House directions have IMMEDIATE PRIORITY and must be possible to
access at all times 24 hours a day. Perhaps two smaller systems--one for
directions and one for the other stuff--would be better than one bigger system?
This whole thing doesn't seem all that difficult to me; my opinion is that this
stuff should all be do-able without the district going into major debt, which
is what the "consultant" seems to be insisting. I should mention that money is
a major priority; whatever can do the job cheapest will get the nod. If it's
too expensive, they'll do without. I appreciate any help. Please e-mail;
there's no need to post this (and I don't often read comp.misc so I'd probably
miss it anyway). Thanks.
--
Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1) =-=-=-=-=-=-= UUCP:brspyr1!miket
BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161
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"By and large, I was only trying to fool Mr. Trout." -Dan Rather840445m@aucs.UUCP (ALAN) (11/28/87)
Hey guy, guess what? I am currently working on such a program for the Commodore Amiga. As of yet I am very sketchy as to what features would be useful for a fire department. I have discussed it somewhat with the local fire department in my home(small) town. The only trouble is that they are *extremely* computer illiterate so it is difficult for them to tell me what they need or for me to tell them what I have in mind. I would appriciate if you would send me some info (as detailed as possible) on what you would like to see in such a program. So far I plan to implement a map of the town showing where the home is, where the nearest fire hydrant is, how many people are in the house, how many kids, etc. I saved your original post which gives me a start on what is needed. Looking forward to hearing from you. P.S. please mail to me. Do not post as I am rarely on this group. if you must post, then post to comp.sys.amiga. I can usually be found lurking around there somewhere. -Alan W. McKay #1 Amigan in N.S. CANADA