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Oct 08The Hangar Management System
by in Feature Articles on 2008-11-19
Back in 1998, at the Department of Informatics at the University of Umeå in Sweden, the professors had decided that instead of the final exam being solely a regurgitation of knowledge gleaned from text books and lectures, it would be a good idea for students to venture out into the real world to complete their bachelor's degrees. In teams of two, they would spend time with a local business, learn how Information Technology fit in with their daily work, and present it back to the professors.
While most students received mundane case studies, the one that Niclas Olovsson and his teammate were assigned became the envy of the other students - the usage of IT tools for supporting flight mechanics at a local airport. Upon receiving their assignment, Niclaus figured that any modern airport would require a state-of-the-art system to keep their airplanes in the air. He imagined hand held smart terminals that received work orders over an intranet, sent data back over an extranet to a VB application over the internet! The synergistic combinations of buzzwords were endless! However, on the morning of their arrival, much to their chagrin, all they found was a greasy old PC...and Klaus.
This year’s Corporate Technology Expo was no different than the ones for years previous. Various departments gathered in the company’s large, wood-paneled group meeting hall and highlighted their top projects and initiatives that were completed during the past year. There was everything from the ASP-to-ASP.NET upgrade of the customer portal to the enterprise-wide implementation of COGNOS 7. The scene was a three-hour, seemingly unending procession of PowerPoint slides with enough laser pointers to take down an incoming ICBM.