The requirement central to the review of the IOMS system was whether the Department should maintain and enhance the IOMS system until 2012, given that it was only expected to have an eight year life (to 2006) when implemented.
After considering the issues, the conclusion was reached to retain and continue to enhance the IOMS system until 2012, with another review to be carried out in 2008. A review in 2008 would be a formal review of the effectiveness of the extension strategy in the light of the business operating environment at that time, and if needed, give the time required to replace the system before the expected end of the system life in 2012.
An overriding philosophy through the review, and for future work for IOMS, is that business changes will be the driver for changes in the system, and the system will need to be modified to support these business changes. The IOMS system must change as business demands dictate. This covers both new functionality, and existing functionality where the business processes are updated.
There were a number of considerations taken into account in deciding whether or not to replace the IOMS system. Ultimately, all considerations were addressed through answering three key questions:
This question was addressed by mapping the business processes in a consistent manner without recourse to the system, to give a clear picture of the business requirements that the system needed to support. Each of these processes was then mapped back to the processes in IOMS. Compatibility was measured in terms of how close the processes in IOMS support the functionality in the business process, and then how usable the functionality is. Each of these measures was given a score, which was then used to determine if the system is meeting business needs.
Overall it was concluded that the IOMS system does meet the Department’s needs in the areas where functionality is currently provided.
This is illustrated by the gap analysis summary diagrams in the previous section - most aspects of most business processes are supported by the IOMS system, particularly the critical core offender management processes.
It was also noted during the review, and particularly through the workshops conducted during Phase 3, that there were a number of areas of functionality that require enhancement resulting from changed and changing business needs.
Development decisions in the past (based around meeting legislative change, overall Departmental process change, and financial restrictions) have necessitated that available development effort be funnelled into certain areas of the application. This has resulted in a backlog of development requirements to fully meet business needs in other areas.
Based on these findings, it was concluded that the system does support current business needs (where the constraints have allowed development) and specific modifications according to a structured enhancement plan will ensure that the IOMS system will meet ongoing and changing business needs.
Since 1999 the Department has demonstrated that the IOMS system can be successfully modified to meet changing legislative and business needs, as well as supporting changes in the technical architecture.
The major changes that have been made to the system include:
An assessment of the underlying technology was completed to determine whether or not the IOMS system can continue to be supported and enhanced. Technology is always changing, and the Department is committed to assessing available technologies for opportunities to work more efficiently while maintaining system robustness.
The results of this assessment confirmed that:
The review also assessed how the Department has modified the IOMS system by examining the current systems’ development approach used. As a result, areas where the development approach could be improved, with the availability of new tools, were identified. This is detailed further in the section titled Maintaining IOMS Technology.
Based on these findings, it was concluded that the Department can expect to successfully continue to modify the existing system until 2012 at the earliest (assuming a consistent upgrade strategy by the developers of the underlying architectures and products). However this will be impacted by future changes in business processes and direction, and these may drive future changes in technologies.
To understand this question, the costs, benefits and risks of replacing the IOMS system in its entirety were explored.
The New Zealand jurisdiction applies an integrated approach to managing offenders, combining prison services, community based services and psychological services within a single organisation, and within a single system. This means the system needs across-the-board integration in order to provide maximum benefit. Therefore any replacement system needs to provide similar functionality.
Costs to fully implement a system the size of IOMS fall into four broad areas. These are:
The benefits of replacing the existing system with a new system include:
There are also a number of risks associated with a replacement strategy, including:
An informal evaluation of systems that are used in Australia to provide similar services was undertaken. None of these systems as yet fully support management of offenders in a seamless manner across all sentences from the first point of contact to re-integration.
One of those organisations has recently been through a tender process for a system equivalent to IOMS. Costs at the time were in the area of $20 million dollars (Australian), and there was still the implementation risks, plus training and on-going operating costs such as licence fees. The final decision of the organisation was to carry out bespoke development because of the cost and time involved in modifying the systems on the market.
Given this, Corrections would incur similar issues and costs, with no predictable advantages at this time. The current IOMS system does support the business needs, and can be modified to provide the benefits of a new system, such as a modern architecture, updated user interface (through having a user interface layer), and a more responsive development approach. Also it will be able to support a portal approach to system access when required. A portal will provide the ability to access other systems (such as MedTech - the offender health management sub-system) through a common interface so that a user can access various applications from one screen. As these advantages can be obtained from the existing IOMS system, it is logical at this time to continue to enhance the system, rather than develop a bespoke system from scratch.
This approach will be revisited by the next review of IOMS in 2008, when there may be alternative products on the market.
As the results have shown, the IOMS system on the whole is supporting current business needs and is maintainable. The question then becomes about whether the risks and costs of replacing the system are worth the increased functionality and benefits.
A full replacement strategy is not supportable at this time due to the associated costs, risks, and limited possible benefits, particularly given the status of systems of this kind elsewhere in the world. The evaluation of the IOMS system shows us that it is meeting, or is capable of meeting, business needs, therefore the option to retain it is the logical choice.