Western Australia Police Service

Western Australia Police Service

Sun demonstrated its understanding of our business and its appreciation of what we were up against. We knew that with Sun we'd have all the necessary support and an exceptionally well managed relationship.

Glenn Crannage
Director Major Projects, WAPS

Over the course of its Delta Program, the Western Australia Police Service (WAPS ) completely transformed itself from a situation rife with public dissatisfaction and high crime rates to become an award-winning exemplar of world-class policing. A key component of WAPS' change management is the Delta Communication and Technology (DCAT) Program, which overhauled the service's information infrastructure to introduce efficiency, save costs, and relieve policemen from paperwork so they could do a better job of protecting the populace.

Sun was chosen to implement a solution that helped to ensure that data center disciplines and processes blended with the DCAT's requirement for continuous access to information with unpredictable loads, mission critical everywhere and reactive scalability. Sun Enterprise servers and Sun StorEdge disk arrays replaced 250 isolated IT silos and now deliver SAP R/3 and many other applications that have introduced dra- matic efficiency benefits for WAPS. The reliability, scalability, technical excellence, and outstanding support provided by Sun have helped WAPS achieve and exceed all the goals of its very ambitious undertaking. Due to cost savings and efficiency improvements, ROI is over 100 percent. Most importantly, the police service is able to do its job far better for a highly appreciative public.

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Change Management Focuses on Style, Standards, Structure, and Systems

With responsibility for the enormous state of Western Australia, WAPS covers the largest police jurisdiction in the world. Like many police forces around the globe, WAPS faced serious challenges in the early 1990's. Crime rates were rising, inefficiency abounded, morale was low, and the public dissatisfaction ratings were high. In 1994 WAPS determined to fundamentally and holistically transform itself through the Delta Program, a continuous organizational change process for applying best practices in all facets of management and operations.

Through Delta, WAPS systematically addressed the program's "four S's" - Style, Standards, Structure, and Systems. By 1998, the department had made very substantial progress on the first three S's and was ready for the all-important Systems phase, completely revamping the force's technological underpinnings so that they could properly support the new business processes being established. It was a daunting undertaking. Over 250 disconnected islands of information had to be replaced and their functions modernized and unified. Vital data that resided only in paper form, such as policemen's notebooks, had to be integrated into comprehensive electronic information flow.

"We were making very inefficient use of information, but we could afford to do that no longer because the police are in the information business," summarized Glenn Crannage, Director Major Projects for WAPS. "Basically everything was broken, and a lot of money was being spent - wasted really - just trying to maintain the islands of IT in place. So, we began the DCAT program by stepping back and looking at overall architecture. We selected applications that held the potential to introduce efficiency throughout the department, starting with R/3 from SAP, but we knew that the real key to achieving their benefits was to establish the right architectural basis and that's what led us to Sun."

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Sun Combines Technological Excellence with Outstanding Service

To be sure to make the right decisions, WAPS took 80 sworn police officers and public servants and created a Major Projects Unit to ensure a complete business focus for each of its many projects. Over the course of eighteen months, a Technical Infrastructure Establishment Project Team gathered information and prepared a comprehensive tender, which was won by Sun and its reseller Fujitsu. "Sun clearly offered us the right level of technical excellence," explained Crannage. "Coming from a proprietary systems legacy, we appreciated Sun's openness. Our applications were absolutely mission-critical, and Sun had the record for availability and reliability those applications demanded. Most importantly, Sun demonstrated its understanding of our business and its appreciation of what we were up against. We knew that with Sun we'd have all the necessary support and an exceptionally well managed relationship."

In summer of 1999, WAPS deployed the first of many Sun implementations. In all, there are currently four Sun Enterprise 6500 servers, four Sun Enterprise 3500 servers, and four Sun Enterprise 450 servers deployed. Sun StorEdge A5200 and D1000 disk arrays provide the foundation for mission critical support by helping to ensure reactive scalability to meet unpredictable workloads. Database servers are configured for high availability under Sun Cluster 2.0 software using scripts developed by Sun Professional Services. Sun service maintains all equipment under the SunSpectrum Platinum Service plan. Many of the applications that run on these platforms have been ported from older systems and integrated with one another by WAPS, with substantial assistance from its systems integration partner DMR. "All the organizations that helped with our change management process by providing services can share in our success," said Crannage. "They work together well, do their jobs well, and continue to do so as our business process reengineering continues."

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100 Percent ROI, Recognition by the Public, and a Safer Western Australia

Although WAPS is far from finished with its plans under DCAT, the tangible results are already outstanding. Seven mainframe applications have been retired and replaced by SAP R/3 on Sun, which is now dependably serving the department's 6,000 users. Arrest reports that Western Australian police officers complete approximately 100,000 times per year used to take 40 to 45 minutes, but now they are now completed in 10 to 12. Instead of sitting at desks filling out paperwork, often at overtime rates, more policemen are on the streets protecting the community.

The change management program at WAPS is one of the largest and most successful ever attempted in a government organization and certainly in any police department in the world. The service's achievements have been recognized by the public, whose approval ratings are vastly improved, and by institutions such as the Australian federal government who bestowed its Gold Productivity in Technology Award to WAPS -- just one of the awards the Delta program has won.

"High on our list of future plans is to embrace the Web for interfacing with the community, which is another of the reasons we chose Sun - their technology is best suited for leading us onto the Internet," concluded Crannage. "Sun has met all our expectations, which is one of the reasons we've been so successful in meeting our goals. Already, we've experienced over 100 percent return on investment, but even more importantly, Western Australia is a safer place."

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"Sun has met all our expectations, which is one of the reasons we've been so successful in meeting our goals. Already, we've experienced over 100 percent return on investment, but even more importantly, Western Australia is a safer place."

Glenn Crannage
Director Major Projects, WAPS