Corporate Information Management: Indian Railways

This case study takes a close look at the Indian Railway Reservation systems (PRS) and tries to identify data, information, knowledge and wisdom captured there-in. It also identifies operational and informational data along wth qualitative and quantitative data .

November 13

2010

Project Team:
Ajay Rana (ePGP-03-006) Arihant Jain (ePGP-03-016) Gita Babaria (eMEP-10-010) Saurabh Seth (eMEP-10-029) Mithun Kanan Koroth ( ePGP03-047)

Modernization of Passenger Reservation system: Indian Railways: A Case Study for CIM
Key Questions to be answered based on the case study:
Find out the Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. List all the qualitative and quantitative data Enumerate in the context of the Case, what operational and informational data is used

The Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom.

Following Model / hierarchy has been used to identify the data, information knowledge and wisdom contained in the case study:

DATA
Scale, Complexity, Usage / Service related data like: 11 million passengers 8,520 trains each day 550,000 have reserved travel times as long as 48 hours and distances up to several thousand kilometers

KNOWLEDGE
Experience and Learned Knowledge of the impact of these numbers and how to transalate these into impact and demand for the Current system and potential performance requirement for New system

INFORMATION
Since the data is use ful and will help in designing and developing and mplementing the system all of t is Information. i.e. Scale complexty Usage Data

Table 5 Growth in numbers of PRS locations commissioned Volume and complexity of PRS E ticketing is only 2% of all reserved tickets

Trending knowledge and forcasting techniques

Future needs forecast Graphs demand related information e.g. Price / Utilization, demand, etc of the PRS

By themselves all the figures and tables are just data but since the team has the knowledge and understanding to interpret and use that data into generating meaningful results and adding to the knowledge of the team this data becomes information. Wisdom is the insight about the system that the team develops over a period of time- in terms of : A) User preference B) Impact of the system unavailability C) Sources of competition D) Need for keeping ahead of the competition E) Being able to perceive the Risks and the benefits of the systems old and new

Qualitative and Quantitative Data present in the case.

Qualitative Data
All non number descriptive Data related to PRS system, customer preference, Indian Railways lke the : Attributes of the new and old system wriiten n C, Uses Database, would like to move to RDBMS Organization charts, Roles and Responsibilities of various groups and organizations Ownership of the various systems Objectives of PRS: 1. Service to public a. Reduction in time and expense involved in ticketing b. Quicker service to passengers c. Quick and easy availability of information regarding trains and accommodation availability 2. Better working environment for staff 3. Reduction in scope for unethical practices in reserving accommodation

Quantitative Data
All numerical data presented in the case study like Statistical Data about the usage complexity and scale of operations

Growth related data on PRS location Volume and complexity related data Transaction / Volume related data

Enumerate in the context of the Case, what operational and informational data is used:
Operational Application oriented Limited integration Constantly updated Current values only Supports day-to-day operations All operational data such as # of transactions Information related to trains their schedule Information reated to current bookings Data that the application uses for Passenger reservation like source station destination station date of travel Number of passengers travel Train name etc. Informational Subject-oriented Integrated Non-volatile Values over time Supports management decisions IR Organization System related information such as the Retraining of non flexible & aging staff Security is a problem hardware & software used skll sets required Governance model User Preferences Govt. Support for IT And Changes in IR etc. Usage of the IR over the last couple of Year # of Trains currently operational Etc.