The Decision Making Process

Implementation of an MIS

In 1992, management at Greyhound Lines Inc decided to introduce a new MIS system that would revolutionize the bus industry. It needed it, since bus travel's share of the interstate market has fallen from 30% two decades ago to only 6% today, thanks to increased auto ownership and low-fare deregulated airlines. Greyhound itself went through a bankruptcy.
The new system, Trips, would allow customers to ring a 1-800 number to book seats. Every seat on every Greyhound route would be tracked. Terminals at any station could issue tickets for even the most complex journeys. And there would be cost savings since Greyhound management could predict customer demand and reschedule buses with empty seats.
But there were several problems with developing the Trips MIS during 1992. Trips was based on similar airline reservation systems. However, buses generally made many more stops than planes along a service route. Terminal operators were low paid and there was high staff turnover. Coupled with a complex system that required 40 hours training, Trips faced ongoing problems.
When Trips became operational in 1993 on 50 terminals, it was inadequate for the volume of information it had to process. Terminal operators found it took minutes to get a response and it was often faster to write out a ticket by hand. In fact, the length of time it took to issue tickets actually doubled. Also, telephone systems that had been designed for 60,000 calls sometimes received up to 800,000. Customers became dissatisfied and Greyhound’s ridership dropped 12% in 1993
By January of 1994, the entire senior management who had implemented Trips had left the company. Two shareholder lawsuits alleged that Greyhound management had made misleading statements about the reservation system. By the end of 1994, further development had lowered the training time from 40 hours to 16 hours. Trips was running acceptably on 250 terminals.
The lesson to take from this case study is that implementing a management information system can make or break a company. Careful thought needs to be given to every implementation aspect. The basic needs of terminal operators, the complex requirements of management, and special technology requirements have to be examined in great detail and in conjunction with each other. Too often, a company has gotten halfway through implementing a particular MIS before having to scrap it and begin again.

Implementation of an MIS
In 1992, management at Greyhound Lines Inc decided to introduce a new MIS system that would revolutionize the bus industry. It needed it, since bus travel's share of the interstate market has fallen from 30% two decades ago to only 6% today, thanks to increased auto ownership and low-fare deregulated airlines. Greyhound itself went through a bankruptcy. The new system, Trips, would allow customers to ring a 1-800 number to book seats. Every seat on every Greyhound route would be tracked. Terminals at any station could issue tickets for even the most complex journeys. And there would be cost savings since Greyhound management could predict customer demand and reschedule buses with empty seats. But there were several problems with developing the Trips MIS during 1992. Trips was based on similar airline reservation systems. However, buses generally made many more stops than planes along a service route. Terminal operators were low paid and there was high staff turnover. Coupled with a complex system that required 40 hours training, Trips faced ongoing problems. When Trips became operational in 1993 on 50 terminals, it was inadequate for the volume of information it had to process. Terminal operators found it took minutes to get a response and it was often faster to write out a ticket by hand. In fact, the length of time it took to issue tickets actually doubled. Also, telephone systems that had been designed for 60,000 calls sometimes received up to 800,000. Customers became dissatisfied and Greyhound’s ridership dropped 12% in 1993 By January of 1994, the entire senior management who had implemented Trips had left the company. Two shareholder lawsuits alleged that Greyhound management had made misleading statements about the reservation system. By the end of 1994, further development had lowered the training time from 40 hours to 16 hours. Trips was running acceptably on 250 terminals. The lesson to take from this case study is that implementing a management information system can make or break a company. Careful thought needs to be given to every implementation aspect. The basic needs of terminal operators, the complex requirements of management, and special technology requirements have to be examined in great detail and in conjunction with each other. Too often, a company has gotten halfway through implementing a particular MIS before having to scrap it and begin again.