NBCS streamlines data management: Xwave also helps Nav Canada deploy new monitoring system

A New Brunswick-developed correctional management system may soon be the accepted norm cross Canada. New Brunswick Community and Corrections Services, in partnership with Canadian integrator xwave, has ended a three-year journey to complete its Client Information System (CIS). The system was recently awarded the 2002 Canadian Information Productivity Award for information management.

Paperwork reduced

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The project was born out of sheer necessity, says NBCS director of programs and planning Michael Boudreau. The Canadian justice system demands offenders serving sentences of two years or less be detained in a provincial jail. Sentences over two years must be served in federal penitentiaries. The split creates the first challenge, he says, especially when dealing with career criminals who may go through both the provincial and federal correctional systems. New Brunswick also has another challenge in that its corrections department is under the management of the Department of Public Safety; courts are under the management of the Department of Justice. Add to that its provincially managed gun registry and victim services, and you end up with a really complex system made even more so because of the lack of free-flowing information -- information that is quite often essentially the same, Boudreau says.

"We've eliminated dozens of forms, all of which have the same redundant information: name, address and serial number. So when you're transcribing that dozens and dozens of times, and remember a lot of these folks we've got for life, there is a huge number of forms," he says.

The move from paper to a Web-based system, done in stages over the three years, has not only reduced administrative overhead and increased overall efficiency, but has allowed for better crisis management, Boudreau says. "Unfortunately, part of our regular routine is dealing with medical emergencies like heart attacks and drug overdoses, attempted suicides and disturbances, or escapes."

CIS allows for real-time incident reports, including the number of offenders involved, their medical history and pictures, to be available to the parties who need them. In case of an escape, the fully bilingual system makes it possible to transmit offender information and digital photos to the police quickly, something not so easy to do pre-CIS, Boudreau says.

The automation of many administrative tasks means corrections personnel now have more time to spend on offender rehabilitation and re-integration programs, says xwave director of systems integration Tom Demerson. It's that kind of service improvement that caught the attention of the Solicitor General of Canada, who is promoting the system as a national model for information sharing among justice organizations, Boudreau says. Also key in getting the CIS national attention was the way it handles the critical security and data backup issues. Information travelling within the same government agency is protected by firewalls, Demerson says. Once it has to travel to an outside partner it is encrypted to ensure safety. Data backup is managed by xwave. The fully redundant system, implemented on an Oracle database and running on Unix servers, resides in a secured data centre where it can be monitored. Data is backed up frequently and stored offsite, he adds.

Xwave has also been assisting NAV Canada, the non-share capital, private corporation which owns and operates Canada's civil air navigation service. (It purchased the system from the federal government in 1996 and is regulated by Transport Canada.) Xwave helped develop Nav Canada's newest monitoring system -- the Air Navigation Monitoring and Control System. The AMCS, which is run by the technical operations division rather than air traffic controllers, allows NAV Canada to conduct 24-hour, real-time monitoring of its communication, navigation and surveillance equipment and systems and has made maintenance of those systems much more efficient, says director of CNS engineering Dave Burtt.

Adaptability key

NAV Canada operates seven area control centres (ACCs) across the country, responsible for the management of airplanes flying above a certain geographic area, Burtt explains. The AMCS is in operation at the Edmonton area control centre and the Ottawa technical systems centre. It takes diagnostic information from a multitude of outlying systems, processes it and presents it in such a way that the co-ordinator in charge of the AMCS can immediately spot a failure and take appropriate action. The plan is to install the system in all seven ACCs within the next 18 months, Burtt says.

One of the key considerations in developing the system was its adaptability, he says, since every air control centre has its own databases and different set of equipment it monitors. The equipment and systems are also forever expanding in scope and complexity, so the AMCS had to be able to handle change quickly and easily.

"Technology is marching forward so rapidly that we are constantly improving and replacing and installing new systems," he says.

-- ITBusiness.ca

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Feb 2003
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